Ashen
by Tavina
Summary: "Of all the sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: it might have been." In which we take a look at the world through the eyes of everyone except Hana. The Bloodless Side Stories.
1. The Happiest Days of His Life

**Disclaimer: I in no way shape or form own Naruto, or make money off of its existence.**

And here I bring you the first installment of Ashen, the Bloodless side stories.

* * *

The first time he held Hana ranked as the best day of his life. Despite all the pain and horror that had led up to the point of holding his daughter, he really wouldn't trade it for the world.

"You look like she's hung the sun and stars, Kai-baka." Tsume's laughter only made him smile brighter. "Not to mention, you have to be holding her wrong, she's still crying."

"I don't think so, besides, she is the most perfect baby in the entire world. The most perfect to have ever existed." He draws a finger down the red birthmarks on her face, and marvels at her ten tiny fingers so abnormally perfect, and couldn't believe that he is actually a father.

"Bring her over here, will you, Baka?" Hana still hadn't stopped crying, and she had an impressive set of lungs, but really, this had to be the best day of his life.

* * *

Kaito doesn't think it strange that his little girl could speak to the Inuzuka dogs ever since she was old enough to focus. Tsume confides that she's confused late at night, but he brushes her off.

"She's our daughter, Tsu-chan. Why wouldn't she be prodigious?" Tsume huffs and sits down next to him.

"She's only two years old Kaito, but the clan's already pushing for her to join the Academy." The words put a hole in his perfect joy, and he wraps an arm around her waist.

"Like hell they'll do that to our daughter." She leans against his shoulder and runs a hand through his hair.

"They won't, Kai-baka, over our dead bodies make her the same as the Hatake boy." He remembers the sullen faced boy with his mask and permanent scowl and remembers that Konoha wasn't kind to it's prodigies.

"We'll be there to protect her, Tsu. You needn't worry that she's getting ahead of herself." He brushes back her bangs to kiss her forehead, and thoughts of Tsume's irritating extended family is forgotten for the moment.

* * *

His daughter is three years old when he realizes that she'd been walking to and from the closest library without even her ever effusive puppies for company. This worries him enough that he shadows her there, and then back despite Ensui telling him that this was a stupid decision.

"I mean, if your Flower's capable of taking care of herself with those overgrown puppies then she's clearly capable of taking care of herself without them." He glares at his friend.

"She's three years old, for the Shodaime's sake, Ensui. Three." He jabs a finger in Ensui's direction for emphasis. "Three is not old enough to be alone." With that thought, he turns on his heel to go speak to his daughter.

"What are you doing out here all by yourself, Hana?" She turns to him with those big brown eyes of hers and he can't resist. He scoops her up and sets her against his hip so they can keep on walking together.

There's a group of chattering old ladies who fall silent as he walks by and he wants to wince but knows that he can't. _You can lampoon me all you want in public. I can take it, but touch my little girl and I will do my best to kill you._

* * *

He's finishing the dishes when his Hana tugs at his sleeve. Despite knowing that he should actually wash his hands before listening to what she wants to tell him he doesn't. Even three years after she was born, she's still the center of his world.

"What's the matter, Blossom?" She's chewing on her lip, which must mean that she's thinking, but if he's serious with himself he has no idea what it might be about.

"How do ninja do magic?" Oh, well he had been expecting the question sooner or later, but still, it's nice to know that she's thinking about how ninja are different than civilians. Granted, if he had it his way, his Sprout would never be a ninja, never have to fight and kill, but that's a foolish pipe dream, so he stores it away for later.

I was wondering when you would ask about chakra." She looked a bit offended, and it's all that he can do not to burst out laughing as he sits down. "There are two types of energy that make up chakra, physical and spiritual energy." The clearer explanation seems to mollify her, and had he ever been this curious, this smart? Everyone said that Hana was calmer and smarter because of him, he hadn't ever really been like this.

A child, and somehow not entirely a child at the same time. _Oh please Kaito, she's just a child. Bright, but still a little girl. How could she even be anything else? What else would she be, you big idiot?_

"Do I have chakra?" The question is a child's and he laughs despite himself and ruffles her short hair. "Of course you do, Bud. You've been using chakra since you were old enough to talk, and probably before."

"I have?" And of course, even her confused blinking is cute. But of course she hadn't noticed using her chakra, she didn't even know what it was.

"Well, you talk to the dogs. That's a pretty specialized form of chakra already. The concentration of chakra in your ears to better understand their language. Of course being an Inuzuka means that you understand them better. If I concentrated, their barking is louder, not clearer." It would be strange to admit this to any other child, that their father isn't invincible, but Kaito has never fibbed to his own little girl. It's too much like telling lies than he feels comfortable with.

Needless to say, a surprisingly fast meditation session later she understands how to find and redirect chakra and he's never been more proud in his life.

* * *

On his daughter's fourth birthday, he takes her out to the park to fly a kite, but they run into a truly reprehensible old woman. Hana is clearly distressed by the event, Kaito knows that she wouldn't want to walk around outside with him anymore. _You're just a foreigner after all. Why would she want you?_ Thoughts that he'd banished since marrying Tsume surge back to the forefront of his mind.

But his daughter is stronger and kinder than he thought possible.

"i like spending time with you, Tou-san." Kaito can only give her his cupcake and bury his face in his hands.

"I forget that you're only four years old sometimes, Blossom. The amount of anger that old witch directed at you today wasn't fair." _And it was all because of me. Oh Kami, what am I supposed to do?_ She pats his leg. "I think that they're mean because Tou-san's better than them." Something that sounds alarmingly like a sobbing laugh squeezes itself free of Kaito's throat. _I'm not better than them. I never was._

"I moved here when I was six, when my father died." He looks at his Hana with his head in his hands, elbows on his knees. The cake lies forgotten next to him on the bench. "As you must have heard by now, from Iwa. Eighteen years later, and the civilians still think that I'm a foreigner." Something flashes in her eyes, and he just wants to hide, because now, finally she will decide that she doesn't want to be seen with him.

"We should go out together again tomorrow." She says, wrapping both of her hands around his wrists. "I don't care that they're mad. I just want them to stop being mean to you. They're never mean when I'm alone." Kaito pulls her into a hug to hide his tears.

"I don't deserve such a grown up child like you, Sprout." _I really, really do not deserve it._

* * *

Before he knows it she's off to school and the house feels emptier somehow despite the fact that he's rarely home when she's not. _Do all children grow up this fast? Does life always change so much?_

He doesn't know, but he smiles, he's supportive and he makes sure that she knows how proud he is of her. It is enough, if only just for the next few months.

* * *

The day before his daughter's fifth birthday brings Elder Shimura to his lab in RnD.

"How can I help you?" He's standing at attention almost immediately.

"You are reverse engineering the explosion release from your home country right now, correct?" The way the council elder says home country sets his teeth on edge, and for the first time he notices how alone he is here, with only Elder Shimura.

"Yes, Shimura-sama." If only the man would go away and leave him in peace.

"Well, your project is to be discontinued immediately." His head snaps up.

"But Shimura-sama the project could be helpful to Kono-" Kaito freezes, not because he wants to, but because he can no longer move a single muscle in his body.

"There will be no help to Konoha by using another weaker country's jutsu." The elder's eyes are dark and furious and not for the first time, Kaito wonders if he made the right choice to decide to come to work this morning. Danzo pauses to sit him at his work table and tip the explosive clay onto his lap.

"Well, it seems as though you've made a very unfortunate accident, Inuzuka Kaito." The man walks out the door and Kaito grits his teeth as the slight amount of chakra the clay came in contact with pushed it over the threshold.

The pain is like nothing he'd ever felt before as both his work table and his chair shatters. He tries very hard not to think of what has happened to his legs. His last thought is of his family. _Tsu...Hana..._

* * *

"Tou-san?" He wins the fight to open his eyes despite the fire that is eating his insides. _Hana. She's here._ "It's Hana." She sounds so young, so frail, and Kaito doesn't know what to think, how to feel.

"Blos-" His voice cracks on the second syllable and he curses every muscle in his body for failing him. Kaito raises a hand to cup her face and she holds it there when it's clear that he won't be able to do it himself. There's still so much he has to tell her, and so little time to do it with.

"The se-" He takes another breath. "The second drawer of the dresser." He'd kept a copy of his research notes there. It isn't everything, but it doesn't have to be. Danzo's name nearly crosses his lips, but he bites it back. _This isn't the burden to place on them. He isn't after them. He's after me, and he's got me already._

Hana nods, and she looks so grown up despite being a child, that it brings a smile to his lips. "I'm proud. Proud of you, Sprout." She smiles the biggest smile he'd ever seen and he wants to cry and laugh all at once but it's impossible.

"Don't go." She whispers and his heart breaks for her all over again. _She's too young. Too young to lose a father_. "Don't, Tou-san." His hand slips away from her cheek, but she holds it tightly anyway as it drops.

"Sor-" He breaks into a coughing fit that shakes his entire frame and his eyes slide shut. "So sorry, Hana, Tsu-chan."

* * *

 **A.N.** Ahhh, writing everything from Kaito's perspective makes this so much sadder...but I promise you it's necessary. Of course, of course, his death wasn't an accident. Indeed it's vital to the plot.

Now, before anyone asks about whether Hana will find out and when, let's just say it's in the very distant future.

I won't promise the next part to be any happier than this, but a girl can hope that her muse doesn't want to continue torturing her heart with horrible ideas.

As always, tell me what you think.


	2. Flower Girl

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

"I'll be fine, Ino-niichan." Kihona flounces onward towards the Academy. Inoichi follows behind her wringing his hands despite being only eight to her six.

"But Kiho-chan." She looks back over her shoulder at him with a decidedly unimpressed look. He splutters, but continues. "What if you meet a bully? Or, or, what if you forgot your bento for lunch, or if the Sensei-" She slaps a hand over his mouth to prevent him from further talking, and giggles.

"I'll be _fine,_ Ino-niichan." A quick kiss to his cheek later, she bounces through the door of her Academy classroom.

The inside brings her up short though. _There are so many people in here._ There are practically no open seats, and she's suddenly not as confident as she'd been in the hallway that she'll be alright. _Where do I sit?_ Her eyes slide over the full seats, the groups of giggling girls bunched together and shrieking in laughter every now and then, and settle on the empty seat next to a boy with the palest blond hair she's seen besides Cousin Ishari.

He's sitting alone on the bench, in the seat closest to the wall. _Well better not miss the empty seat and end up having to stand around like an idiot._ Kihona takes a running start towards the place on the bench besides him.

"Hey," she says, as he turns to look at her with big blue-gray eyes. "You look like Ino-niichan" And he does, he really does, but he seems surprised so he must not know who Ino-niichan is. Still he hides his surprise well, and only growing up in a clan of mind readers had taught Kihona to be discerning.

"I'm Kaito." He offers and Kihona smiles despite her earlier nerves.

"I'm Kihona! But you should just call me Kiho-chan like Ino-niichan does!" She holds out a hand between them, and he hesitates, but they shake on it. Behind her, the girls on the next bench over break out into gasps and snickers.

 _What's their problem?_

She turns around to glare at them, but before she can say anything, Sensei clears his throat at the front of the room, and they are beginning.

* * *

She sits down with Kaito-kun at lunch and pulls out the gigantic bento that her mother had packed her that morning, and Ino-niichan had forced her to bring. "Hehee, did you see Tsume-chan punch that stuck up Hyuga across the room today?"

Kaito-kun turns to look at her, a puzzled expression in his eyes. "Who's Tsume-chan?"

"Oh, she's the girl with the black dog, and red triangles on her face, you know?" Kiho tosses a strand of her blond hair over her shoulder, so it doesn't fall into her rice. "I think her actions towards Hyuga was the funniest thing that happened this morning."

"I don't know." Kaito pulls a single pack of store bought onigiri out of his bag. "Why would you find that admirable?"

"Here." Kiho offers him a piece of mochi and some of her rice. "I want to be able to stand up to people that are mean, too." And wouldn't that be a nice dream? To be strong enough that no one would ever be able to hurt anyone she cared about? "Serves him right for stepping on her dog's tail."

"It's alright, you know." He says, and tries not to take her food. "But I don't think Hyuga-kun did that intentionally."

"Hey, Kiho-chan, why're you spending time with that loser?" Fumi's standing over them with her hands on her hips. "Everyone knows that he's the son of a foreign whore." A muscle twitches in her cheek and his knuckles stood out as white as rice paper on a winter morning and she is so, so angry. _What right to you have to say something so awful?_

She doesn't even realize that she'd slapped the awful girl before she stands there chest heaving, hand stinging. "Get out."

Fumi stands there, eyes wide with shock and Kihona can not bear to look at her. _I've never slapped her before._ "GET OUT!" The girl touches her reddening cheek. "NOW!" Kiho roars and advances. Fumi takes one look at her and flees.

Kaito's shoulders are shaking when she turns back to him, his tears plopping onto the plastic wrap of his cheap onigiri and she makes a vow to herself. _He's going to be my little brother from now on. I'll take care of him like Ino-niichan takes care of me._

"Ne, ne, Kaito-kun, are you okay?" She does her best to smile encouragingly. _I'm different from her, you see? I won't ask you why they're mean to you._

He draws in a shaky breath. "I'll be okay, Kihona-san."

She slaps a hand over his mouth. "Call me Kiho-chan."

Sensei's advancing on them, and Kiho turns to smile at him. "Good afternoon, Sensei!" He's frowning, which is unusual, because he had smiled easily that morning when he'd come to her name.

"Fumi-chan told me that Iwa-kun had slapped her." He tilts her head up so she looks him in the eye. "Do you know anything about this, Kihona-chan?" _Iwa-kun? Oh, she must have meant Kaito-kun._

"No." Kihona smiles. "Fumi upset Kaito-kun by calling his mother a bad word. I slapped her."

"You don't need to lie for him, Kihona-chan. Lying to a superior is wrong, you know." Sensei's words are sharp, but he tries to keep his tone gentle.

Her lips tighten as she frowns. "I'm not lying."

It looks as though Sensei is about to say something else, but another voice breaks in. "The troublesome girl isn't lying even if she is bossy sometimes."

"En-kun!" And it is Nara Ensui, a year older than her, but destined to be her genin teammate since birth. They'd known each other since they before they could crawl, but he'd been in the other class. She hadn't expected to she him. _Oh but this is wonderful. Sensei has to believe both of us._

And indeed he has no choice. Faced with two clan children who insisted on the same story he could only send all three of them to scrub the blackboard, scraping gum off the seats, and clean erasers after school.

* * *

"Kiho-chan!" Ino-niichan bursts into the room as she claps two erasers together over the trash. "Where were you?" He grabs her by her shoulders and shakes her until her teeth clatter together in her head. "Do you know how worried I was? You could have gotten lost, you could have been hurt, you could have died and I would have no idea since you weren't there to meet me." He says this all in one breath, and then pulls her in for a bone crushing hug. "Don't do this to me, little sister."

"Yamanaka-kun." Sensei stands over the two of them with a frown. "Might I speak with you?" Ino-niichan lets go of her reluctantly and follows Sensei to his desk.

Kiho goes back to clapping her erasers. If there is a problem with her current predicament, then Ino-niichan would sort it out. He always does when it comes to her. He always moves forwards as subtle as a futon jutsu and twice as harsh as a hurricane. Most things didn't stand up to Ino-niichan's possessive rage. _Sensei is hardly going to be an exception to the rule._

"What?!" She turns just in time to see Ino-niichan slam his hands on Sensei's desk. "You take that back right now."

Sensei's arms are crossed. "Your sister attacked another student today without provocation. She should be disciplined far worse than cleaning my classroom."

Ino-niichan crosses his arms as well, and his mouth sets into a hard, grim line, and his eyes are two flinty teal stones. He draws himself up into his full height. which comes only up to Sensei's chest, but the impressive scowl on his face more than makes up for it. "I am the Heir of the Yamanaka, and you've been impolite to my sister, _Chunin._ " He spits Sensei's title like an insult. "You should watch your words." He whirls around and storms over to Kiho.

"Come on, little sister, we should take the problem to Otou-san."

* * *

Outside of the classroom, she tries to remove her wrist from his death grip. "Niichan..." He doesn't turn around and doesn't let go. "Wait! Niichan!" There's still no response from him and he attempts to march down the hallway. She sets her feet far apart and doesn't let him drag her. "Niichan, you're hurting me!"

It works too well. He drops her wrist as though it is a hot coal. "Where?" There's such regret in his face, such worry in the depths of his teal eyes, and Kiho feels almost remorseful. _Ino-niichan, you're the best older brother in the world._

"It's okay. We just left someone behind in the classroom that's all." She marches back into the classroom to retrieve Kaito-kun only to find that Sensei is sneering at him from the front of the room."You shouldn't be here, Iwa-kun. You should just go back to the filth you came from."

Kaito-kun looks Sensei in the eye. "I don't think so." Sensei's hand twitches, as though he wants desperately to strike the child standing proudly before him.

Behind her, Ino-niichan makes a growl of rage and begins to drag Kaito-kun from the room. "You know what, I don't know your name, but you're coming to see Otou-san too." He turns a distinctly not impressed look up at Sensei. "Say goodbye to your job, Chunin. I hope your intolerance and prejudice was worth it."

They are halfway out the door before En-kun raises his head. "Oi, who's going to come get me?"

Kiho giggles and bounces up to him. "If you wanted to come over for dinner you should have just said so, En-kun." Most of the time, in her personal opionion, Nara Ensui is a waste of space, but today he'd been less lazy and more willing to help, so today she is more disposed to be kind to him. With that, all four of them end up at her house, as the sun sets over the rooftops.

* * *

Kaito-kun isn't exactly _shy._ He did have his own opinions. She could see it in the minute facial expressions he made when he thought there is no one looking. She saw it just earlier that day in the way he'd spoken to their ex-sensei, but he seems to keep expecting everyone in her house to drop what they are doing and suddenly tell him that their kindness is a joke. Kiho finds this terribly sad, but more than that, she finds herself terribly angry.

 _Who could have done that to him? Why would they do that to someone as nice as him?_

So when Otou-san comes to turn out the light and tuck her into bed, she pulls him into her darkened room to sit in the chair at her table and crawls into his lap instead. "Why did Fumi call Kaito-kun's Kaa-san a foreign whore?"

Otou-san frowns. "Iwa-kun is foreign. It causes those with smaller hearts to be less accepting of him and his mother."

"We should get a new sensei." She mumbles with a hand clutching his shirtfront. _So sleepy._ "This one has a small heart and isn't accepting."

Otou-san kisses her temple and disentangles them so he can tuck her into bed. "I'll see what I can do, Kokeshi (1)."

It is enough.

* * *

 **A.N.** I became really fascinated with Nara Kihona when I was writing her scenes during Bloodless, and I wanted to flesh out some of her childhood, and isolate a few defining features of her personality. Thus we get this snippet, entitled Flower Girl.

1\. Kokeshi means little poppy, and is a nickname that I find to suit Kihona very well. White poppies in the Japanese language of flowers means rejoice, and yellow ones mean success.

~Tavina


	3. Tea and All Things Tan

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

"But I have made a vow,

I won't live the life you made me choose.

We're players in a game,

That I don't intend to lose."

-Beth Crowley, "Gone"

* * *

"Ensui-san!" Harada hurries in from the outer office. Nara Ensui sets down the cipher he'd been working on. _Kami. If you don't have anything to say this time, you better shut up because there's been a massacre happening in Kiri, and I needed to get the intel to the Sandaime to yesterday._

"What?" He barks, and pulls the next sheet toward him. "This better be important, Harada."

Harada stands, his hands on his knees gasping for air. "Inuzuka Kaito's dead."

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. The sound of his heart is the only sound in the entire room. "What did you just say?"

"Inuzuka-" _You're incompetent._

"I heard that. I want to know details, Harada!" He moves across the room to pull the man closer by his shirtfront. "How did he die?"

 _He's gone on no out of village missions. He's been in RnD all week. His death makes literally no sense._

"There was an explosion in RnD in the ninth ward. Inuzuka was caught in the blast." _He'd been researching the explosion release, accidents do happen. But Kai-kun's the most careful person I know._

"And he died in the explosion?"

Harada has the good grace to look shiftily around. "That was yesterday, Ensui-san."

Ensui feels his glare intensify. "What did you say?"

"He died this early morning, but you said yesterday not to disturb you unless the sky was falling..."

"You are incompetent, Harada. Go collect your belongings. You don't belong in Crypt." _I need to find out what actually happened._

* * *

"So you're telling me that there's nothing you could have done." He's cornered the nurse who'd worked primarily on Kaito's case in the hospital, but the woman doesn't have much to add.

"By the time they got Kaito-san up here from the ninth ward he'd lost too much blood, Nara-san. Most of his injuries were below the waist though. His chest and face was untouched."

 _If he'd been leaning over the blast it would have blown his face off. If he had dropped it on his lap though...oh who am I trying to kid, Kaito wouldn't have been so stupid. He's a careful man by nature._

"Thank you for your time." Nara Ensui's prodigious brain is churning, outcomes and possibilities are percolating. _Someone's making this death look like an accident. It's no accident._

 _But who would have this sort of power? The Hokage? His council members? A foreign plant?_

* * *

"Sembei, can I have a moment of your time?" He catches his cousin, Head of RnD, Nara Sembei, on her way out the door as the sun's about to come up a week afterwards.

"Yeah, Ensui? What's happened?" She flicks a piece of dark brown hair out of her face and turns around to look at him.

"I was wondering if you had Kaito's research papers." He keeps casual pace with her despite his lack of sleep. He'd been thinking all night, these past few nights, turning memories over in his head, looking at old photographs.

"He didn't have any." _That's a lie._

"I knew he had a research project going on. I want to give his papers to his widow, is that so hard?"

Sembei stops in the middle of the early morning bustle. "I'll tell you something, cousin." She leans in close to whisper in his ear. "Don't get involved in this. It'll kill you." His blood runs ice cold in his veins. _So it's not a foreign plant then._

 _This has to do with the Hokage and his Council._

"Thanks for the warning." He steps away from her as they enter the compound. "I'll think about it." But he won't really, not in the way that he's implicitly promising her.

She says nothing more.

* * *

Later that same week, he pays a visit to the archives. Idate...Inuzuka...Inuzuka Kaito.

The file that he finally pulls from the shelf is incomprehensibly thin. _There's no death report in here. What the hell is going on?_

The more he looked at it, the more it seemed like the Hokage himself wouldn't be able to distance himself from the murder. He'd taken to referring to it as a murder in his head. It makes things all the more real.

Very carefully, he puts his friend's file back into the shelf. _If this is a set up by the main administration, then I do need to watch my step._

If they'd been willing to murder Kaito for something, and at this point he didn't know any reason his best friend might be murdered beyond having been born in another village, then it would be simple for him to also have a small 'accident' and die with no one the wiser.

 _It's unlikely that the Hokage ordered the death, but nothing goes on in this village without the Hokage's knowledge. It has to be the Council's doing then._

He leaves the archives, and heads back to his desk in Crypt.

But there's someone he's got to watch out for now. His best friend had a daughter that he'd adored. _Don't you worry, Kaito. I'll get you the justice you deserve, and if I can't get you that, I'll make sure your daughter wants nothing._

Even so, he has enough self preservation to realize that charging into the Hokage's office baying for blood is the worst thing he could possibly do. They are watching him after all. Waiting for him to give up what he knew.

 _I have to stay away until this gets a little distance, sorry Kai-kun. The last thing I'd want to do is draw attention to your family._

 _They think your death was accidental, but oh Kami I know better._ Sembei's warning echoes in his mind. _Don't get involved in this. It'll kill you._

 _Who am I kidding?_ _I'm in too deep._

* * *

"You've been investigating something." Shikaku crosses his arms over his chest in Ensui's small living room. It's September, and there's a bite in the air, Kaito's favorite season had been fall, and Ensui can't find it within himself to care what Shikaku wants.

"I don't really know that it's much of your problem." There's been a storm brewing with Shikaku ever since April and now he knows that it's coming, long at last, to a head.

"Troublesome." Shikaku mutters, but the scars on his face stand out starkly in the morning sun as he stares hard at Ensui. "You're going to bring the wrath of the Council down on you, Ensui." He takes a step forward. "No matter what you believe, you've got to stop."

It's a choice then, a choice between loyalty to his friends, or loyalty to his clan.

"I don't have to stop." _You want me to make a choice? I burned that bridge in April. I'd have burnt that bridge in an instant after the hell I went through with Kaito in Kusa. Where were you then, Cousin?_

 _Who among the Nara was with me then?_ He stalks off towards his bedroom and starts throwing his personal effects into a pack. "You can't make me stop, and I don't have to put up with any of your shit."

He blows past a stunned Shikaku with the force of a thunderstorm. "I'm leaving. Think about your choices, Cousin."

* * *

"And Team 6 will be-"

"Hyuga Tokuma, Inuzuka Hana and Aburame Muta under the leadership of Nara Ensui." Ensui drawls while shoving his hands in his pockets. _There's a long night ahead of me if I've read Hokage-sama's mood correctly. Let's just hope it doesn't get me in hot water._

Daikoku Funeno splutters. "Nara-san, that messes up the rule that we've kept for years! Inuzuka-chan has already been assigned to Team Two with Uchiha-kun. She's this year's top kunoichi. Aburame-kun and Hyuga-kun should be on a team with Shinko-chan." The academy teacher stops to stare at him. "And none of the senseis listed happen to be you."

Ensui slouches even further. "I don't give a damn." _You owe me old man. You owe me because I've not thrown a fit about the man whose murderer you're hiding._

"Ensui." The Sandaime exhales a cloud of smoke. "I know you care about those children." _Well no shit, I care. That's why I can't stand by and watch as you shove Hana-chan into a team that'll blow up on their first real mission out of the village with a Sensei that'll get them all killed by his stupid jealousy._ "Would it be an acceptable compromise to team Inuzuka-chan, Aburame-kun, and Hyuga-kun led by my personal guard, Hatake Kakashi?"

Ensui doesn't trust the Hokage's personal guard much further than he can throw the boy. Shimura Danzo had his eye on Hatake Kakashi.

"With all due respect, Hokage-sama, you do that and you won't have a head of Cryptology by this time tomorrow morning." The air grows cold.

"Ensui."

He covers up a yawn with the back of his hand. "No offense, Hokage-sama, but Hatake isn't fit to teach children. He's barely a teenager." _He also has an entire empty house worth of problems that he prefers to stay far far away from._

 _I'd like him to stay far far away from my future students to be honest._

"Ensui." The Hokage sets his pipe down. "This childish fit of temper isn't like you."

"It's not distemper. I'll have this team the way I want it, or I'll go civilian." He straightens slightly and looks the Old Man under the hat in the eye. "I'm not joking, and most of the time, I don't ask for much."

The old man regards him for a very long time, and no one dares make a single sound. "You'll work double time for this Ensui. Cryptology is still your duty."

 _Oh shit._ He runs a hand through the end of his high tail. "Yeah, yeah." _It'll be worth the work._

* * *

His genin team would be the death of him. He knew it after the first week of teaching them. Oh, they were good kids, he'd known that when he requested them, but he didn't know how much he would _care._

It's been a long time since Nara Ensui has tumbled into such complex platonic love after all. Not since his academy days has he so involuntarily decided that there were some people who deserved to be shielded from as much harm as is within his power.

"You look like you're in love, Waste of Space." Kiho sets her hands on his shoulders and whispers in his ear. "Should I be jealous?"

He laughs. "Will anyone ever be more important to me than you?" Both of them know that even just after a week, those three children could in fact give her a run for her money.

 _Not yet. But I won't have to choose._

She giggles, a hand over her mouth as she walks over to sit down on the wooden floorboards before him, and props her face up on her elbows on the low tea table. "But I haven't seen you this happy in a long time." _Not since Kaito-kun died,_ goes unsaid between them, but it hangs in the air like a spider web in the morning sun, beautiful and painful, an entrapment.

 _And we both know you're not over that._

"I think I might've figured out why Kaito so dearly loved his Sprout." His hands slide into the thinking seal. "There's a good chance if we meet an enemy out there I'll be the one who won't come home."

 _And out there is just beyond the walls of our house, darling._

She wraps her hands around his, and looks him in the eye. "That's okay." She brushes his bangs away from his face. "I'd forgive you." And that's what it means to know, through the ease of long acquaintance, how acceptance and unity works.

He hugs her, a hand tangled in her long blonde hair. "I do not _deserve_."

"Hush. What you do and do not deserve is not for you to decide."

* * *

He precedes his cute minions out the door, hides in a nearby alley, and makes sure that they're off to a good start. It is only their first C-Rank out of the village, and even though it's fairly tame, he can't quite put down his worries. As soon as his fears had been soothed he's slouching off towards a nearby tea house.

 _Sho-an...Sho-an...there it is._ He steps in.

"How may we help you?" He's greeted by a petite brunette woman.

"The thunder clouds are cold in the morning." _Jiraiya-san has such stupidly poetic meeting codes._

The woman blinks. "Oh, come right this way." He's ushered into a private room. The Toad Sage is already in attendance with a buxom blonde.

"Ahaha, I've got work to do now, darling." The woman's sent on her way quickly, but the sight's still enough to leave a slight edge of bitterness in his mouth. _You don't mix work and play, Jiraiya-san. And you don't try to replace your genin teammate with a prostitute. Honestly._

"I was told there's some time sensitive interceptions you made on the border to Iwa?" He sits down, taking care to avoid anything the woman's touched. _I do not fancy swapping spit today._

"Yeah." Jiraiya flips a stack of papers over towards him. "There's some sort of dark force moving in Iwa, but I've yet to understand where it's coming from."

"These aren't the right ones, Jiraiya-san." Ensui tosses the stack back at him. "This is your...research."

"I double encoded the stuff, Ensui." Jiraiya takes a sip of his tea. "Gotta keep up appearances you know."

"Mmm..." Ensui glares balefully in his direction. "You know I don't have as much time as I used to." _I've got three children to teach and a quiet investigation to conduct after all._

 _There's still at least one person who hasn't been prosecuted for murder yet._

"Yeah, a genin team right?" Jiraiya grimaces. "Hope they don't turn out like us. Flaky and awful."

 _Not everyone's team ends like yours, you know._ "Nah," Ensui stands up and tucks the paper into the front of his flak jacket. "They're good kids."

* * *

Taking his genin team out on that Search and Capture mission was a supremely bad idea, he thinks, when he wakes up in his hospital bed. _Thank goodness, we all made it back alive._

"What the hell were you thinking?" _Ah, and there's my overprotective brother-in-law._

"What did I miss?" He asks while checking that his limbs are still connected and listening to his demands. They did, but with more effort that he would have liked.

Inoichi levels a furious glare at him. "You bet your life on a group of genin?!" _Eh, not that really._

"Ino-niisan, I bet my life on my students. Three genin that I've taught for a year now." He raises an eyebrow at Inoichi. "Surely that has to mean something to you." _It's not enough. By the set of his lips he is still ridiculously angry._

"What were you thinking? You could have all been killed. How could you have let something this stupid happen? I thought you had a brain Nara! Use it, or you'll leave my sister a widow." And he is convinced that he's going to be on bed rest for far longer than he is currently slated, because doesn't Inoichi look _angry_.

But then Kiho appears just in time along with his three students, and Inoichi is shoved, for a brief moment, to the sidelines.

"Kakashi's team picked us up." Hana-chan comments guilelessly, and his mind goes into overdrive. _She calls him by his given name. How does Kaito's Sprout even know the Hatake Prodigy? How close are they?_

 _What does Shimura Danzo want?_

A conversation later, his wariness sharpens his resolve into something sharp and hard. _I need to have words with the Hatake Boy about acceptable manners._

* * *

His shadow sneaks out and tags one of the ANBU flitting about on the roof as he sits in Cryptology late at night. "We need to talk, Hatake."

"I'm giving you face just by staying still, Nara-san." Comes the blithe response. But then, given that he is an ANBU on duty he shouldn't even have opened his mouth to talk except to the Hokage or when it is absolutely necessary. Somehow, this conversation is probably not absolutely necessary.

Ensui grits his teeth. "Come in." _The nerve of him, honestly._

"What did we need to talk about?" Hatake enters, but doesn't take off his ANBU mask, or move that far into the room.

Ensui's hands slide into the thinking seal. "You know one of my students. One Inuzuka Hana-chan. How?" _If you answer wrongly I swear I will gut you with this stack of paperwork. I don't care if the cipher gets ruined._

"I don't have any clue what you mean." It would help just a little more if Hatake happened to be a little more animated, and a little less bland.

"She knows who you are." Hatake opens his mouth to respond, and Ensui continues on, without listening to what he has to say. "And if you ever harm a hair on her head, so help me Kami, I will end you and no one will find your body."

"I wasn't planning on it, Nara-san." Hatake disappears out the window, and Ensui can feel a headache building in his temples. _Why. Why do I care so much?_

The answer's simple though. _She's Kaito's daughter. I'm supposed to be her fun uncle, not her sensei._

And not for the first time, his mind turns back to the list of people he had personal business with because they'd taken that chance away from both of them when they took Kaito.

 _They will live to regret messing with a motivated Nara._

* * *

 _And now for the next one._ He looks around at the large field around him. _Where to put the kunai...where would be the most humorous place?_

There's a tree, well, many trees, and a field of flowers...and at one end, a rather large pile of manure. _There's the best spot._ A quick Doton jutsu later the tagged kunai is buried under the pile of manure.

 _I have to watch them attempt to dig this out._

"Sensei?" Tokuma-kun tugs on his sleeve. "I've located the last kunai." _Aha, so it begins._

He turns to his three (adorable) students. "So you've located the last kunai. What seems to be the problem?"

"It's under the manure, Sensei." Muta-kun comments, and Hana simply stares off into the distance.

"And?" Ensui raises an eyebrow, and watches as their proud expressions turn into ones of shocked horror.

"You don't mean we have to dig it out?!" They shriek in unison, even Muta, and Ensui allows his inner self to cackle evilly. _Indeed my adorable students. Dig them out and give entertainment to your Sensei!_

"What did you do with the other sixteen?" He gestures to the pile. "You retrieved them, didn't you? Well, what makes this one different?"

"But it's manure, Sensei!" Tokuma-kun fidgets. "Won't we get dirty?"

"Well, are you willing to fail?" He checks an imaginary watch. "Because if you don't dig it out within the next five minutes you will fail and I will find a women's bathhouse to stick eight kunai in during the next run."

"That's not fair!" But his cute students get straight to work digging anyway. He just can't wait to see their faces when they realize later that Doton jutsu work much better than their hands.

But for now, he just really wonders when Tokuma-kun will notice that he has manure in his hair.

* * *

He's sitting at the bedside of one of his students for the second time since these thrice damned exams began. Nara Kasuga will be dying a slow death indeed, but there's still a small ember of frustration with Hana-chan.

 _Why, why, why, did you have to go after that girl?_ Yes, one of her dogs had gotten hurt, but did she not notice that the other kunoichi had managed to stab her through the abdomen during their grappling match? Did it not matter if she got hurt?

Did she not think of what else would have happened to her teammates if she'd just snapped?

And the victorious howl right after ripping out someone's throat with her teeth wasn't _human. Is Hana-chan even fully human?_

 _Do all Inuzuka's have this problem?_ He'd too many questions, and not enough answers.

But he'd made a promise to care for her, and so he kept sitting, listening to the beeping of the monitors and watching her chest rise and fall with every slow breath.

* * *

"Oh, come in, Ensui." He's been working a late night down in Crypt again, but there's a code he's cracked that can't wait until morning. _The old man really ought to have gone to bed by this point. He's not as young as he used to be._ But an instant later he quashes his empathy. There's too much anger at the Hokage's careless attitude regarding Danzo for him to really be empathetic.

"You know we've been intercepting messages from Kumo recently." The careful interception and copying and then returning the hawks to their normal flight patterns is a difficult and dangerous job reserved for a certain blonde Nara's infiltration team. _I do love when Kiho can work with me. Intel's such a fun job to play with._

He slides the abstract of his analysis across the table to the Sandaime. "They're looking to take samples of our kekkei genkai, but we haven't caught anything to say when or how they're going to do it. "

The Hokage sighs "I need you in Crypt more than teaching a genin team." _Oh no. Hell no._

"You know I can't have that." And yeah, he hasn't been sleeping much recently,, but those children need a Sensei, and he'd be damned if he let anyone else near them with a fifty foot pole. _Who knows who'd get their claws in them if they aren't under the tutelage of the Head of Crypt?_

He'd been hearing rumors. Inoichi had confessed something quite disturbing about Council Elder Shimura regarding how easily his ward, Fu, had been taken from him and not yet returned. Shibi had been tight lipped about his own ward, but it's easy enough to connect the dots.

Based on the patterns that had been arising, his Hana-chan is a prime target for the ANBU draft, and his other ducklings are not far behind. _And I'd say if I thought Danzo was capable of working years in advance, that Hana is in fact a reason for Kaito's murder._ But none of the children selected had teams or jonin sensei. None of them were formally ninja even if they had the potential to be. And even if he's not a frontline specialist, he's still Nara Ensui, Head of Cryptology. There has to be a measure of protection in that.

"You'll need a third person for your genin team. Aburame-kun's just graduated." The Hokage steeples his fingers together over the abstract.

Now that's unexpected and abnormally irritating. "I thought Muta-kun will still be running missions with us?"

"He's applied for the Tracker Squad in special training. You'll need a third member." And he has to acknowledge, that in fact the Sandaime still has a great deal of clout. _Are you shielding Shimura Danzo on purpose?_

 _Or are you really selectively blind?_

"As long as it's not Nara Kasuga." He shoves his hands in his pockets and slouches forwards. "I'd kill him in a week."

"No." The Hokage's face is wreathed with steam, and he's so terribly old. "You'll be taking Uchiha Itachi."

 _Are you putting me under surveillance with the Uchiha now, Hokage-sama? Are you in league with Danzo?_

"Yeah, yeah. We'll go pick him up tomorrow." He waves half heartedly as he heads out the door. "I get it."

 _I've learned to be patient, Hokage-sama. I'm not a child. I can play the long game._

* * *

 **A.N.** A peek into the head space of our resident Nara-sensei. Now that I think about it, Nara Ensui is actually a revenge driven maniac who loves his children and would like nothing more than to see Danzo burn and dance over his grave. Not sure if he cares much about the Sandaime either...

Nothing more scary than a motivated Nara to be honest.

And thanks to Sis, Alizay, Al, and Born to Sleep for reviewing! Yes, Danzo's motivations for Kaito's murder will become clearer as time goes on. He didn't do it because he woke up one morning and thought it would be fun. Danzo's evil, but he self justifies as it being good for Konoha.

There's a thought process involved, but none of the characters who have so far had a point of view reveal knows exactly what that is.

Thanks to everyone who favorited and followed! Honestly you guys are the best.

~Tavina


	4. Some Fall By Virtue

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

This chapter of Ashen is dedicated to the 100th reviewer of Bloodless, rickrossed, who wished for either an Uchiha Fugaku point of view, or a Kakashi one. Here's something about Uchiha Fugaku. I hope you like it.

* * *

"Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall."

—Escalus in _Measure for Measure, William Shakespeare, 1603_

* * *

The night of October Tenth is pain, fear, and a thousand other things for Uchiha Fugaku. The village is decimated. Civilians that he'd sworn to protect with his life lie dead in the streets. And he had not seen either of his two sons since he'd stopped by Itachi's bedroom on the way to work that morning.

So if his night had been bad, then really, the red sun rising just made everything much worse.

He'd been on his way to the shelters to find the rest of his family- _Mikoto. Itachi. Sasuke.-_ praying that they'd be there, that they'd be alright, when the glint of something white in the morning sun catches his eye.

He almost doesn't stop- _just leave the clean up for the clean up crews. Itachi and Sasuke are more important-_ but he does stop, pulled by some awful and powerful force to turn down that side street and pick up the broken silver chain glittering in the rubble.

 _A jasmine flower._ A foot away a bloody hand protrudes from the rubble. His mind goes blank. _No. No. It cannot be._

He's pawing through the broken stone and gathered debris with his bare hands a moment later. _Wild, blood soaked dark hair, thin shoulders-_ he flips the woman over. _No, it can't be-_

* * *

"Kosshi. Inuzuka Kosshi." The prim and proper girl with wild hair throws back her shoulders and straightens her spine. It looks like she has a steel rod there to be honest.

"Uchiha Fugaku." He offers. "Heir to the Uchiha Clan."

"Don't be so haughty." She frowns at him. "We're equals."

The word doesn't quite sit right with him. _You're just a girl who's two months younger than me. We aren't equals at all._ "You're younger than me."

"I'm the Inuzuka Heiress." She crosses her arms over her chest. "So if we're debating titles, that makes me your equal."

"I thought your older brother's the heir." Inuzuka Kegawa is a year older than himself, and Fugaku knows that his own age is eight, which means that her brother has to be at least a year older than her, she's only a few months younger than him after all. That makes Kegawa the heir, because that's how inheritance works.

 _I'm the heir because I'm Tou-san's only child. That's how it works._

"My brother doesn't inherit." She considers her words for a moment. "Neither of my brothers will inherit my Kaa-san's position as clan head." Her chin juts out and dares him to disagree. "I'm the only daughter. That means I'm Kaa-san's heir."

"Girls don't inherit." Fugaku crosses his arms as well, irritated now. "Everyone knows that. Telling a lie like that's super dumb."

Her eyes narrow and she stamps her foot. "You just don't think I'm your equal. But I think you're rotten and stupid." She throws up her hands and stomps away into the swirling mass of people.

"My sun and stars?" His Kaa-san appears from the crowd of winter festival goers. "The Inuzuka are announcing their future heiress tonight."

 _Heiress. Female. Not Heir. Male._

"But Kaa-san." He whispers while taking his mother's hand. "I thought Kegawa was the Heir?"

"The Inuzuka inherit from their mother, sun and stars." His Kaa-san comments absently. "The clan head is always a clan daughter."

 _Oh. That means I've wronged her...She is the heiress after all if she said it._

* * *

Because he'd made such a mess of his first conversation with Inuzuka Kosshi, he's determined not to do the same thing again. "Kaa-san, if I want to say sorry to a girl, how should I do that?"

His Kaa-san looks down at him from where she'd been washing dishes. "Well, what sort of girl are you trying to say sorry to, my sun and stars?"

He thinks back to how she'd first appeared. Brazen. Proper. Proud. "Someone distinguished. Proud." He flushes as he realizes that Kaa-san is looking at him with a raised eyebrow. "An Heiress, Kaa-san."

"Well," Kaa-san begins. "If she's an heiress you'll want to get her flowers." _Flowers? Those have meanings right?_

Well if he's going to apologize, and Kaa-san has decreed it must be flowers, then he's going to do it correctly.

 _Everything has its proper place, Fugaku. You must do correctly, or not do at all._ Tou-san's words about propriety echo in his mind. _Complete the task set to you, or do not begin._

"Thank you for your advice, Kaa-san." He hugs her briefly, missing the sadness in her eyes, and turns to leave.

* * *

Poppies for success and happiness. _No that's not it. She's not poppies._ He sets the large dusty tome of Hanakotoba down on the table in front of him, and flips through another page. Jasmine. Grace. _That's better. She might be jasmines._

He hurriedly flips towards the end of the book. There are still clan duties to accomplish, and his free time is growing short. Violet. Honesty. _That's it._

 _That's what she is._ Honesty that he'd called a lie.

But she's also more durable than any flowers he could get her, and he wants his apology to be just as durable.

Maybe a hair pin? He'd have to stop by the jeweler's later.

* * *

Now, if only he could _find_ Inuzuka Kosshi before sunset, that would be fantastic. With a heavy heart, he stops scanning the surrounding area, and makes his way towards the Inuzuka Compound. _Might she be at home?_

"Excuse me?" He interrupts an old woman by the kennels. "Do you happen to know where Inuzuka Kosshi is?"

"Oh, Kosshi-hime?" The old woman smiles cheerfully at him, and he notes that her canines are indeed fangs. "She's down by the river, little boy."

He doesn't like being called little boy, and likes even less the casual hand that ruffles his carefully straightened hair, but the woman is an elder. He will pay her the proper respect.

"My thanks, Obaa-san." He bows to her, exactly as deeply as her station deserved from him, and sets off towards the Naka river, his apology still clenched firmly in his fist.

He does find her where the Naka River bends away from the Inuzuka Compound, she's there with a little gray puppy and judging from the laughter curling towards him, they're having a lot of fun.

"Kosshi-san." He calls, and she turns to regard him for a moment, with those dark and serious eyes, but then she turns away.

He sighs, and moves closer to where she's still splashing around in the water, her skirt hiked up to her knees. "I wanted to say I'm sorry." He thrusts his hand forward.

She turns to regard him with a quizzical expression. "What?"

"I said, I'm here to say I'm sorry." _Are all girls this frustrating? If they are I never want to get married to Mikoto. She'd be awful, just like this one._ He opens his fist, the violet themed hair pin glittered in the light of the dying sun. _But then, Mikoto's never been irritating before._

She gasps. "Did you get it for me?" And in that moment Fugaku thinks that maybe Kaa-san should call Inuzuka Kosshi 'sun and stars' instead. Her face is the sun, and her eyes are like brightly shining stars.

"They're violets for honesty." She tilts her head towards him, and he slides the pin into her dark hair, the violets flashing.

She throws her arms around him in a burst of unexpected warmth. "You should come over for dinner. " She takes his hand and drags him down the river bank, the puppy trailing behind them. "Kaa-san won't mind. She loves friends."

* * *

"And Team Nine will be Hyuga Hizashi, Inuzuka Kosshi and Uchiha Fugaku."

Kosshi cheers loudly while throwing an arm around his neck. "We're on a team together!"

He reminds himself that he likes this girl. This girl who's brazen and proud, who's unabashedly honest and cheerful. He reminds himself this because he's only known her for about a week.

Hyuga Hizashi sends him a pitying look. Fugaku glares at him until he turns away.

* * *

"And this is Cousin Kouga." She gestures to the older boy lying around on the couch in the living room as they return from team practice. "I'm supposed to marry him when I grow up." _She will?_ He pushes the stab of disquiet away. _I'm supposed to marry Mikoto anyway._

"You make that sound like it's a bad thing, darling." Kouga grins up at her from his reclining position. "You know I'm your favorite cousin."

She wacks him in the stomach. "You know you're so full of it, idiot." She stands above him with a hand on her hip. "I'm introducing you to my teammate today, so sit up properly alright?"

Kouga flips himself upright. "Yeah, yeah."

"This is Uchiha Fugaku, my best friend." Kosshi gestures to him. "He's a bit stiff, but he's mostly alright."

Kouga offers him a hand, and a fanged smile. "I'm Inuzuka Kouga."

"And I'm Uchiha Fugaku." _No one is going to intimidate me. I'm going to make another friend even if it kills me._

By the kunai sharp edge of Kouga's smile though, it looks increasingly as if he just might die of friendship.

* * *

"And this is Cousin Mikoto." He pulls Kosshi along through the doorway of his house. "She's my fiancee." Fugaku had attempted to put off this meeting, but he'd been overruled by Mikoto.

Her exact words had been. "If you're going to become friends with an Inuzuka Girl, it doesn't matter if she's their heiress Fugaku, then I'm going to pass sentence on her."

Mikoto is quiet, demure, and steely, but she and Kosshi share many similarities and a few differences that would rub each other raw.

Kosshi looks Mikoto over. "Aren't you rather too pretty to be a ninja?"

Mikoto frowns. "And aren't you too brash to be friends with an Uchiha?"

"I don't see how that's much of your business." Kosshi sets her hands on her hips.

"Do you even know his favorite color?" Mikoto stalks forward and they stand together, nose to nose. "His favorite food? His favorite flowers? What do you know about him anyway?" _This will end, very badly._

"Mikoto, please."

She glares at him. "You have no say in this."

His fiancee is a tigress when she's angry, and clearly she finds Kosshi irritating. Fugaku himself doesn't know what to feel about it. _Why is she so upset about the fact that I've gained a friend?_

"What does knowing any of that have to do with being friends with 'Gaku?" Kosshi blinks. "It has nothing to do with anything at all."

Mikoto drags her away towards the kitchen. "You're coming with me."

Fugaku drags a hand over his face. _Why is this my life?_

* * *

"Oh for goodness sake. I'm not going to marry him of all people!" Kosshi throws up her hands and stalks out of the kitchen. "And I know how to make my idiot's favorite food so it's all good right?"

Mikoto trails after a smile on her face. "So you just want to be his friend?"

Kosshi whirls around. "I've been slated to marry Cousin Kouga since I was two years old." She speaks slowly, as if to someone who is particularly slow. "I happen to like my idiot, why would I trade him for someone else?"

"We can be great friends then." Mikoto beams and slides an arm through Kosshi's, and they walk off, arm in arm. "Come on Fugaku, we should go out and eat dango."

Kosshi begs leave after only a single skewer, and whistles for Hatsumaru and they walk off together.

"You shouldn't be so mean, Mikoto." He states very calmly. "If you'd scared her off it wouldn't be nice."

Mikoto blinks at him, innocence dripping from every feature. "Since when have you cared about nice when there's dango involved?"

* * *

"I thought I'd have to get to know ya." Kouga appears at Fugaku's habitual training field without fanfare.

"I don't think I'm interested." Fugaku turns and begins punching the post instead.

"Is it because I'm going to marry Kosshi?" The Inuzuka's suddenly sitting on top of the post, staring into his eyes without a hint of fear. "And don't tell me any lies, I can smell them."

"It's because I didn't sign up to know everything about her entire extended family." Fugaku states flatly. _I might not think you're good enough for her, but I don't want to marry her myself, that would just be weird._

"Nah, you just don't think she and I mesh very well, don'tcha." Kouga hops off the post. "I don't think you're really her normal friend material, but she happens t'like ya. I ought to be friendly."

 _Remember my sun and stars, friendships come in all types._

"I wouldn't be opposed." It is again, his Kaa-san's words that are his saving grace. _Thank you for reminding me, Kaa-san._

"Well ya won't regret it." Kouga smirks. "Let's go for a spar. You 'n me."

"Well then come on." _I'll beat you black and blue._

* * *

The four of them go out together on a double date at the winter festival. It is a rare year, there's a light dusting of snow on the ground, and Kosshi and Kouga walk, arm in arm.

Fugaku prefers to simply hold Mikoto's hand.

"Look, Idiot, they're selling wishes." Kosshi bounces forwards, dragging Kouga forwards as well.

"What're you wishin' for, darling?" He doesn't seem to mind, just letting her pull him forward without batting an eyelash.

"To be rid of you permanently." She deadpans. "It'll suit me just fine."

He gasps mockingly and clutches his heart with a hand. "You break me, darlin'. You don't know how much that hurts." But he buys her about seven wishes anyway, protesting all the while that none of them ought to be ones that got rid of her adoring fiance.

From besides him, Mikoto giggles, and Fugaku looks down at her. "What's the matter?"

"Don't you think they look good together?" Mikoto smiles. "He knows exactly how to respond to everything she says."

"We look just as good." He pulls a red camellia, _I'm in love with you_ , from a nearby stand and flips a few bills onto the table. "This is for you."

Mikoto's smile turns more genuine as she accepts. "Thank you." _She knows the meaning of every flower there is. I cannot surprise her except with my choices._ "It's lovely, anata." His own smile grows fond.

 _My natural romantic. You and me both._

* * *

"I don't think you understand, 'Gaku." She sounds distraught.

Kosshi's crashed into his room at an early hour of the morning, and he sits up groggily. "What's the problem?"

"Kaa-san's _dead._ " She rubs a hand over her face, and for the first time, he sees her eyes red rimmed and swollen with shed tears. "I have to take over the clan this afternoon and Tsume is _fifteen._ What do I know about girls her age?"

"You'll do fine." And she will do fine, her brash, honest ways won the hearts of Inuzukas everywhere. "And you were once fifteen years old too, Kosshi. I'm sure you'll be able to understand your sister."

"She runs around all day with a Nara, a Yamanaka, and a _foreigner._ " Kosshi throws up her hands in despair. "She's not okay and I've never done that before, and Kouga still wants a wedding this spring."

"Don't you want to get married to him?" Sure, she'd always called Kouga an idiot, but she's close to Inuzuka Kouga. Perhaps closer than she is to him.

"Yes." She sighs. "No." She turns around and crosses her arms over her chest. "I have no idea. Kouga's great. He's just." She blows a piece of hair out of her face. "He's just an _idiot_ , you know? And I'll be taking care of him forever. And Kaa-san's dead, and I don't know what to do."

"You do love him then. And believe me, I doubt he's really an idiot." Fugaku carefully pulls on his flak jacket. "Come on, let's go get cheap convenience store dango and you can cry again. Everything will work out fine."

She does bawl her eyes out on his shoulder. And everything after she takes over the clan affairs does, in fact, work out fine.

* * *

Kosshi marries Kouga on an unusually crisp May morning, with jasmine blooming all around them, and roses from white to red dripping from every counter at the reception.

The bride and the groom smile so much it seems that their faces must split in half because no human muscle could contain their joy.

"Come in, come in." Kosshi pulls Mikoto into a group of laughing Inuzuka girls. Her own sister, Tsume, is in attendance. "You have to come and see the wedding present Hizashi got me. It's so tacky that even I know it. You'll probably faint on sight. He has no taste, I swear."

Kouga smirks. "Looks like you should come and join the crush, Gaku." He's pulls Fugaku in the direction of a group of Inuzuka men.

It is only then that he realizes that he and Mikoto are the only Uchihas in attendance. In fact, they are the only non-Inuzuka clan members at the wedding.

"Didn't you invite anyone who wasn't a clan member?" He hisses at Kouga as he's dragged through the crowd.

"Not a chance." Kouga sings back and shoves a bowl of sake in his hand. "Drink up. There's no need to be so stiff. It's a wedding not a funeral."

* * *

"Would you do me the honor of a dance," Kouga bows dramatically in Mikoto's direction. "Lovely Mikoto?"

"You are a flatterer." Mikoto blushes even so, because now that they're adults, Kouga is...charming. And he had a particularly rugged sort of charm that makes young women swoon.

 _You are a horrible friend._ Fugaku thinks. _But at least, like every other Inuzuka I've met in my life, you're horribly honest as well._

Kouga grins. "I know." And he looks at Fugaku- _go dance with my wife, you idiot._ -over Mikoto's shoulder as they spin across the dance floor.

Fugaku knows not to slight a gift when he receives it. With a nod to the other man, he goes.

* * *

Later that year Fugaku, Kouga, and many others are sent to Konoha's border with Kusa. Iwa had been unusually militant in the recent months.

About a month into their border patrol slog, Fugaku wakes to Kouga's dark form sitting in the entrance of their shared tent.

"What are you doing? It's not your guard rotation for camp tonight." In the dim moonlight he makes out a letter.

"Kosshi wrote." Kouga says and he turns around and smiles so hard he might actually break his face. "I'm going to be a father."

They make it home for the birth. A daughter, born first. Kosshi names her Ashi.

* * *

A week afterwards, Kosshi's little sister Tsume, who is still only sixteen, elopes with Kaito no Iwa.

"I can't believe her!" A vase smashes against the opposite wall. "Does she not understand that he's what, three years older than her? And a foreigner. A foreigner of all people."

"Kosshi-chan...I know you're angry but smashing vases won't help." Mikoto sets a hand on her shoulder and guides her back to her seat.

Fugaku winces. "I can't imagine that the elders are pleased with this turn of affairs."

"No." Kosshi states, sarcasm dripping from that single word. "She has no idea what lengths I have to go to protect her from them now." She runs a hand through her hair and sighs. "The first thing they suggested was that we take back Kuromaru and strip her of her clan name."

Mikoto gasps. "Surely not." It's a serious thing indeed, to strip a clan member of their name, and that they would suggest it of the clan head's own younger sister is almost unthinkable.

"I'm not as well established as I thought." Kosshi mutters. "I have a daughter a week old who can inherit my position and suddenly it's like my baby sister doesn't even merit a mention anymore."

"You'll show them that it's not acceptable." Mikoto lays a hand on Kosshi's shoulder. "You're strong enough to do it."

Kosshi's grin is dagger sharp and waiting to slide between someone's ribs. "Of course, Mikoto. You'll help me, won't you."

Mikoto's answer is gleeful. "Oh, you know I will."

* * *

The rest of them are sent back to the Kusa border. The winter is again, miserably cold.

When they return, Kosshi names her first son, Gaku.

"I thought it fit you know." She says, tracing a finger over those small and chubby cheeks where the red fangs that featured so prominently on every Inuzuka's face are beginning to darken.

"After him, really, darling?" Kouga gestures at Fugaku who's still leaning against the door frame. "Not me? I'm hurt."

The months spent out at the border together had changed the nature of their relationship a little though. No longer are they at odds with one another.

"Please, Kouga. Who'd name their child after you? They'll grow up to be an idiot, just like you." He doesn't know what prompts him to say this, but Kouga's shocked expression is truly worth it.

His booming laughter as soon as he understands what's been said is the most fantastic of it all though. "I knew we'd crack the famous stone man eventually." He claps Fugaku on the back. "You're becoming an actual human being."

Fugaku glares balefully at him. "I was always a human being, Kou."

* * *

Two years later, the Kusa border is again a problem.

Again they go.

* * *

There are sounds and lights and shinobi wielding Doton Jutsu. The attack on camp had been sudden, brutal and harsh.

"I'm going to go hold them off. You get the hawk off the ground we'll need reinforcements." Kouga clasps his shoulder, and then heads off into the night.

Fugaku follows after him. "You were injured in the last border skirmish. I'm not going to let you go alone."

"Look, just get the hawk for reinforcements going towards Konoha will you?" Kouga opens his mouth to say more, but suddenly his eyes widen and he pushes Fugaku to the right. "Out of the way!'

Kouga's scream as he burns, Fugaku will remember for the rest of his life. His answering Katon lights an entire swath of forest on fire. Out in the darkness of the night, his eyes begin to bleed.

 _No._ He touches his eyes. _Mangekyo?_

He had not thought that Inuzuka Kouga was his best friend. Had not thought it-but wasn't it true?

Hadn't they done everything together for months on end? Hadn't he seen who Kouga was? Hadn't they actually been friends since he was eight years old, nearly just as long as he'd been friends with Kosshi?

No shinobi from Iwa makes it back alive from that attack. In the still dark, he takes a tanto to each of their faces, and with his eyes still bleeding, he sets all of them aflame. _An eye for an eye is not enough._

 _I want them all dead._ He faints before backup arrives to see his massacre.

* * *

"I'm sorry." He wants to set a hand on Kosshi's shoulder, but there's something heavy in the air preventing him. "Kouga's body wasn't salvageable after the battle." _He burned and oh how he screamed._

"I understand." She folds her hands in her lap, and smiles, polite and completely blank. "I would like to be alone with my children now, Fugaku."

He doesn't feel good leaving her like this, but he does not understand her dead calm. _When her mother died she bawled on my shoulder like a small child._

 _She'd been closer to Kouga that she'd been to her Kaa-san._

 _And yet it does not seem as though she mourns._

Three steps out the door, he hears her body hit the floor. He races back.

There's blood pooling around her, and the rush to Konoha General passes in slow motion.

* * *

"There's not much we could do, Inuzuka-san. You had too much of a shock."

Kosshi blinks up at the nurses by her bedside. "My child?" Her hands reach for her abdomen.

"We're sorry, Inuzuka-san."

She turns her face away and weeps. Her shoulders do not shake.

And Fugaku has no idea what to say. _I cannot tell her that I have M_ _angekyo. I do not want to tell anyone._

 _I do not want to tell her why he died._

It is Mikoto who rises to comfort her. Fugaku himself slips out into the hall, his throat closing in, choking the breath from his lungs, and the movement from his tongue.

* * *

They'd been dancing, but both of them decide that it's time to stop. Kouga is still spinning a laughing Mikoto out on the dance floor, but there's one last thing Fugaku has to give.

"A gift for the bride." He smiles. "A jasmine for grace, heaven knows with Kouga you'll need it." A single jasmine flower made from white gold and porcelain hangs from a silver chain at his fingertips.

She smiles back at him, and takes the silver chain. "Clip it on for me?"

"Of course."

* * *

"K-kosshi." He chokes back a gasp at her face. _She can't be dead._

But the broken silver chain hanging from his fingertips is proof enough even if he doesn't see the blood. And there is too much blood for him to miss seeing it.

He swallows, his throat suddenly dry and constricting again. _What more did you want to take from me Kami-sama?_ But his eyes do not bleed. They've already bled, and more pain would give him nothing.

He picks up the fallen jasmine charm from where it lay, glittering in the rubble. _You caught my eye. Without you, I would not have stopped._ It's cracked and as his fingers touch it, it shatters into four pieces. He drops the chain on top of it in the debris, and very carefully picks up Kosshi instead.

When he straightens, it feels like he's carrying the weight of the world.

But she's only a woman. A brazen, proud woman who spoke her mind as often as she could get away with it.

And now she is only a memory.

* * *

"A tear is as heavy as the weight of the world and so fragile that could be dried with a kiss or erased by the wind." -Dihaval.

* * *

 **A.N.** Uchiha Fugaku, Uchiha Mikoto, and Kosshi really deserved some back story. And this is what my brain decided to spit out. Over four thousand words about Uchiha Fugaku's discovery of his genin teammate's dead body and the memories that ensue.

I literally bawled while writing some parts of this. I swear my mind never creates happy stories, especially one shots. All of them end up dismal, like this piece.

Thanks to Alizay (the Third has never been a favorite character of mine either, but I don't dislike him. I'm selectively neutral.) for reviewing!

~Tavina


	5. Ikigai (The Reasons We Have For Living)

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, and Kakashi is sufficiently evasive, trollerish, and weird. Not always in that order.**

* * *

"We drink the poison our minds pour for us, and wonder why we feel so sick."

-Atticus

* * *

Hatake Kakashi flips himself through the Hokage's window and congratulates himself on a mother well evaded. There is nothing wrong with Inuzuka Tsume, except that she is the over protective mother of one over eager puppy who would get herself killed in short order except for her freakish amount of good luck. Said over eager puppy seems blessed with people who loved her well it would seem, her teammates, her mother, her little brother, her vindictive Nara-sensei and his teal eyed wife, and even Uchiha Fugaku. That last one is odd, but not entirely unfeasible. _Just odd that's all, that the stone faced bastard would like anyone who isn't his blood relative._

"You seem to have taken a liking to Inuzuka Hana-chan, Kakashi." The Hokage remarks, and Hatake Kakashi stops congratulating himself. _I got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning._

 _It is the only explanation for this._

In all actuality he'd fallen out of bed sometime just after midnight with the overwhelming urge to wash his hand clean of blood that he knew wasn't there and he hasn't gone back to sleep since, but still. It's the thought that matters.

"Maa, I don't have any idea what you're talking about, Hokage-sama." He pulls out his most recent addition to his bookshelf. Jiraiya-sama actually wrote decently even if half of the book is mostly erotic adult literature involving drama, threesomes, and more drama. It is currently better than most alternatives, because at least humorous porn didn't talk about death and dying. His mind whispered enough of it as it is. Of all the people he'd failed.

Of all the people that he had to apologize to.

"You visited a hospital of your own volition." The Hokage steeples his hands over the pile of paperwork on his desk. "You do have to realize that Inuzuka Hana-chan is not Nohara Rin."

And okay, that stings. That stings because yes, there'd been that one time, _one time-_ or two, or three, or four, or about a million-when it seemed like those big brown eyes belonged in someone else's face, when the concern reflected made him feel like he was back on Minato-sensei's genin team again and that Obito was just around the corner. When if she didn't open her mouth to complain about Idiot Scarecrows, it would almost seem like Rin, or some alternate dimension of Rin.

But he didn't lie to himself, Inuzuka Hana is a passing curiosity that had very few personality traits with his late teammate in common. _You were just marveling over how her latest haircut made her look more like Rin again._ He quashes the treacherous voice in his brain, and turns a page. _You have spent over six years on this passing curiosity, Kakashi-kun._ He quashes the voice even harder, although it sounds like Minato-sensei, and turns another page. _You should learn to be happy again, Kakashi-kun 'ttebane!_ That one sounds like Kushina-neechan. That one deserved the most quashing.

"Nohara Rin is dead." _Is dead, is dead, is so very dead, I'm sorry. Sorry Obito, it's all my fault._ "And Inuzuka Hana is very much alive." He'd made sure of that while checking on her this morning. He needs to visit the memorial stone again after this. He'd spent too much time in the hospital that morning watching what might have been a nearly toasted puppy sleep the sleep of the innocent.

And he'd always had a fondness for puppies, even if they walked on two legs.

The Hokage sighs. "Whatever you say." A mission scroll comes flying through the air towards his head. "There was an incident reported at the Kusa border, go check to make sure that Kumo is not planning an invasion."

He takes the mission scroll, and for the second time that morning, flees an uncomfortable situation.

* * *

"Reported insurgency at the Konoha-Kusa border. One incident." The mission report is written in a truly horrible scrawl that would outdo even his own chicken scratch if given half the chance. _Was the writer raised by wolves?_ He muses, and unrolls the scroll further. "One team comprised of Nii Yugito and presumably genin teammates (See information regarding Iwa Chunin Exams) met with Konoha's routine border patrol (See information regarding team members in Appendix A). Team Leader Inuzuka Hana-" And here his mind short circuits. _Damn that old man._

 _He knew who headed this mission and he still gave it to me to check back on. Damn him._

Back to the scroll. "Inuzuka Hana was challenged to a fight by Nii Yugito. There was a minor skirmish on which both sides suffered no life threatening injuries. With Nii put into a position where retreat became necessary the Kumo Team retreated. The border was patrolled at hourly intervals for forty eight hours after the event but no further sightings of the Kumo team can be reported. The rest of the week was uneventful."

The mission report is as dry as sawdust. What did 'minor skirmish' and 'position where retreat became necessary' even mean? _Damn her Nara-sensei who works in Intel and could probably make even normal language write in code with as many layers of meaning as there are grains of sand in Suna._

 _Damn him too._

It's too early for this, despite it being nearly noon. He heads towards the memorial stone.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Obito." He traces the name on the black stone with no sense of purpose this morning. Even here, Inuzuka Hana had made memories that plagued him still.

"Tou-san's dead." She laughs. "But then so are you, and his name isn't here." And neither is Hatake Sakumo's name here, although he supposes that their fathers had died for different reasons. One, a freak accident in RnD. The other...suicide.

He pushes the thought away.

"That was nearly a year ago, Hatake-san." A pause. "And I don't think death is all it's cracked up to be." She'd spoken with the jaded cynicism of those who'd seen death at about seven.

And yet, and yet, he'd had seen her running down the street shrieking with laughter with her teammates, had seen the love that she so easily gave to people around her.

A little girl carrying her little brother on her shoulders as they walked home from the park. The sun dyes the sky red above them. He says something, and she laughs, clear, free, and bright.

He pushes that thought away as well.

"I wasn't enough to save you." And he just stays there for at least another hour tracing names and seeing faces.

And remembering that that idiot girl had once told him that someone else had whispered Rin at the sight of her.

It is not enough. It will never be enough. But he has sins to pay for, and his hands will never be clean.

* * *

Kakashi checks the border between Konoha and Kusa and he thinks of Inuzuka Hana. He doesn't do it often and he doesn't want to think about whether or not it matters, because it doesn't.

No one should matter anymore. _But she fed you._ No one should matter. Everyone who mattered died somehow. _But she's interesting. And so much fun to annoy._ She'd not stopped to speak to him the last time, he'd attempted to talk to her.

And the idea irritates him. _She doesn't want to think about me. Stop thinking about it._

* * *

He'd been walking down the street after the Chunin Exams in Iwa, musing about whether or not he'd actually made a friend when he wanders through the flea market on the bad side of town.

"Ah, Shinobi-san!" An old man beams at him from a street corner. "You look like you could use another chair!" _A chair? I don't need a second-Oh but wait I do._

 _I have someone who might want to sit down somewhere besides the floor next time._ And isn't that a novelty, but surely it's the least he could do given how betrayed she'd looked sitting on the floor in front of his fully stocked refrigerator.

Just the thought of it makes him laugh, rusty and disused, but that childish pout and awfully shocked face is something he is so glad to have forever.

"But I'm such a terrible cook!"

"I have no idea what you mean." She'd burned the fish, and he knew exactly what she meant, but goading her made everything more fun.

"I'll take it." It completely doesn't match with the other chair in his apartment, but that doesn't matter. It's the thought that counts.

He flips a random bill towards the old man and picks up the chair. A second later he disappears in a swirl of leaves.

* * *

"You have no comments?" He asks after he replaces the mask. _Most females your age and older do have comments. Largely, why are you pretty._

"What am I commenting on?" She asks him with an arched eyebrow that he'd come to find a part of her. "How you got a scar on your face?" Everyone knew why he had a scar on his face. "Why you don't have a harelip or buck teeth?" _Is that what they think it is these days?_ "Am I supposed to tell you that your face is decidedly symmetrical?" He nearly chokes on his rice. _Well that's one way to put it._

He eye smiles at her. She grins back, razor sharp, and he likes it. "Decidedly symmetrical?"

"Symmetrical faces are more trustworthy and generally considered pretty." She parrots, and isn't it funny? It's so funny. "The human brain recognizes symmetry as a pleasing element."

His shoulders shake from the force of his silent laughter. _No one's ever attempted distilling attractive facial features down to symmetry before._ "Generally considered pretty? Pleasing element?" He gasps and for once it's not like he's drowning in blood."You're too funny, Hana-chan."

She crosses her arms and frowns at him. "It's not nice to fish for compliments, Kakashi-san." But then she's serious again, no longer pouting. "I shouldn't have yelled at you." _Yelled at me? Oh, that little boy in Iwa._

"You shouldn't have." And his eye smile is once more, a hundred percent plastic. _No you really shouldn't have, Hana-chan. Not for a foreign shinobi._ "But I forgive you."

"No you don't." She jabs a finger in the direction of his one visible eye. "You only eye smile like you're plastic when you really aren't forgiving me." _You noticed?_

"I'm attempting to forgive you." He amends.

"Much better." She stands up and makes for the door. "Next time, don't drag a poor under aged chunin into a bar." _That makes me sound so inappropriate, Hana-chan._

Just to annoy her, he gets up and pulls out his latest book. And then whistling a merry tune, he follows her out the door. _How do you feel now?_

* * *

And then Gai of all people wanders into his apartment and nearly sits down in the second chair before he's zapped very unsubtly.

"You're not supposed to sit there." Kakashi deadpans while leaning against the counter. "I'm not being welcoming."

"YOSH! MY ETERNAL RIVAL IS SO HIP AND COOL! HE WISHES TO ENHANCE MY LEG MUSCLES BY HAVING ME STAND!" But then Gai becomes serious again, which is always irritating and awful because it proves that he does in fact, think about things that aren't training, challenges, or more training. "Why do you have a second chair?"

"I bought it for a new puppy." He turns around. "A two legged one this time."

It takes a moment for Gai to compute that two legged did not mean disabled, but rather _human._ "You made another friend?" Gai pumps a fist into the air. "AT LAST! MY ETERNAL RIVAL HAS REDISCOVERED THE SPRINGTIME OF HIS YOUTH! YOUTH!"

Kakashi feels as though he ought to have a migraine, but somehow he can't find one today.

* * *

There is nothing he can find on the border, not the stretch that she'd been patrolling, not five miles upstream on either side of the banks. To make matters worse, it's raining, and cold.

He almost suspects that it is a wild goose chase, until he crosses Orochimaru's path out of Fire Country a mile downstream of her three mile stretch. _So close. Why so close?_

He sneezes. It really is rather cold.

The Snake Sannin is gone, of course. He isn't there anymore, but he'd passed so close to where she'd been patrolling that it almost seemed like he'd wanted to know what was going on there.

And the rushing worry beneath his breastbone is new to him, the song of nononononono not something he'd felt in a long time. _What does he want? Whatdoeshewant?_

He reminds himself once more that he does not _care._ He merely collects the information.

"Boss?" Pakkun prods him with a paw. "Are you alright?"

He turns to smile cheerfully at Pakkun. "Why wouldn't I be alright?" _There's nothing wrong with me!_

Pakkun is completely unconvinced. "You are depressed and angry about something. What's happened?"

Guruko closes in from the other side. "Is this about the girl?" No one's referring to anyone by name but there is only one _girl_. _One living girl at any rate._ He amends after a moment's thought. Only one girl that he'd be angry about.

"No." He replies, and turns back to gathering blood samples. "Nothing's the matter."

Urushi sighs. "It's definitely the girl. What did you do, Boss?"

"Nothing." And he hadn't done anything at all beyond the ordinary for her to tell him that he isn't wonderful and that she wanted him to go away, preferably far away from wherever she was.

And then her first reaction to seeing him willingly inside a hospital is to scream. It really bruises one's ego.

"Boss definitely did something." Uhei mutters. "And it has to do with the girl."

"Which girl?" Shiba crowds forward. "I didn't know Boss had a girl."

"She's not Boss's girl." Pakkun frowns. "Although Boss spends a lot of time dealing with her. She's also really little."

"Oh." Bull licks his nose. "But that doesn't mean that she _can't_ be pack. It just means she isn't there yet."

At this point, Hatake Kakashi is sure he wasn't supposed to get out of bed at all this week. _Preferably a tasteless, odorless poison that induces a permanent sleep._ He muses. _Yes, that's it._

* * *

He reports his findings back to a Hokage who had to have been out to get him, and then doesn't even think about Inuzuka Hana for another week.

To be fair, the wheezing in his lungs and the coughing probably has something to do with it. The fact that his head feels like it's going to roll off his neck if he does anything like _moving_ also probably has a lot to do with it.

 _It figures that now I can't get out of bed._ He thinks crossly, and then feels the headache pound even worse.

Well, he supposes that he could get out of bed, he just doesn't _want_ to. It's much easier to lie around and stare at his blank, whitewashed walls. _Perhaps it would be easier just to stay here forever._

There's a drug store on the corner. There's medicine for his illness just down on the corner. He would only have to get up and stagger down the street, but he doesn't want to.

* * *

"K-Kakashi..." It's Rin again. He glances down. His hand is in her chest again and there is blood blossoming everywhere, and then they are both falling down into the darkness.

"I'm sorry." He whispers, but it's no use, they're always falling. "I'm sorry." He repeats, louder this time, but that's no use either. If he doesn't mean it, it never ends.

"Boss?" Pakkun asks worriedly from the other side of the door. "Boss? Are you alright?"

He doesn't respond. There's a blank white wall for him to stare at because for some reason he's awake again. There are his failures arrayed in a line for him to contemplate.

"Kakashi-san?" And oh, there's the hallucinations again, although Inuzuka Hana-chan is a weird thing to hallucinate about. Normally there would be more blood and-He stops that thought. "Kakashi-san? Please stop ignoring me? I'm sorry."

That's funny. Most of the time the apologies go the other way around. He's normally the one apologizing for ki-he stops thinking that thought too. _Obito. I haven't visited you in over a week. Are you angry with me?_

And then his door falls down. _Hmm...how interesting...it's never done that before. I might need a better door._

There's a hand on his forehead now. He grabs it as it tries to leave, and he very carefully checks who the hand is attached to. _Oh. It's Hana-chan._ "Why're you here?"

She sighs. "Let go of my wrist, Kakashi-san. I'm going to find you some water."

He blinks. "Didn't you say you were _busy_ , Hana-chan?"

She looks vaguely surprised. "We can talk about that later." And then she pulls her hand free and wanders off.

* * *

She passes him a cup of water when she gets back. "Sick people should stay hydrated. Also, I'm very sorry, but I had to break down two doors to get to you." _That is a very strange thing to apologize for._

He raises an eyebrow, and she gestures towards the door of his bedroom. "As you can see, I melted the hinges off the door, so the wood should still be salvageable, if you want to stick it back on later."

He settles back on his pillows and says nothing. _That's weirdly specific, and oh, look, the puppy's trying to run away again. Oh how I hate it when people run away from me._ "Where do you think you're going?"

"The corner store to find you some medicine that you despise." In a brief moment of lucidity, Kakashi recognizes that he is being phenomenally silly. _I run away from everything all the time. And this isn't even a permanent attempt._

* * *

There's a storm outside again, and lightning in the air and he is standing in front of his father's corpse again, blood soaking into the floorboards. "Tou-san."

There should be no response, but-

"Here." She offers "You might want to take these so you don't die."

He glances down at the white tablets and then up at her, the sharingan eye still firmly shut. "But what about the mask?" _What will you do about that?_

She pulls it off and throws it away without a second thought. "You shouldn't even be wearing a mask when you have breathing difficulty." And he's back again, to that one time he'd gotten sick and Kushina-neechan had found him before he fell of a red bridge- _Don't wear a mask when you're sick, Kakashi-kun 'ttebane! That's so irresponsible._ "Please, at least know the basics of how to take care of a common cold if you hate hospitals so much, Kakashi-san." Echoes. All of these voices echoed.

His mouth curls upwards in the lazy semblance of a smile, but there are ghosts in this room that she'd never know about, and he intends to keep it that way. "You have a terrible bedside manner, Hana-chan. You should never become a doctor." _Please never do. You'll see less dead people that way._

She buries her face in her hands. "You're going to give me a headache at this rate." She moans. "This has been an awful day." _You could say that._

Somehow though it isn't that terrible now. He seems to be recovering somewhat, sliding further from Death's door. He glances back up at her. _Oh, the puppy's asleep. How cute._

* * *

When he wakes the next morning, she's still curled in an uncomfortable position on the chair, shivering slightly as the cold air blows through the open door. Which, now that he thinks about it, she's responsible for since she'd melted his hinges yesterday instead of just picking the simple lock.

Outside the world is painted white. He climbs achingly to his feet, and glances down at the blankets that have fallen crumpled around him and then back at her. _I need to get a couch._

Then, very carefully he picks her up and tucks her into a small cocoon of blankets, and tries to tell himself that it's because if he returned her to the Inuzukas with a cold they'd want to rip out his throat and he doesn't want that. It doesn't quite work.

"Koma-senpai." She mumbles. "Sorry." And then she turns around and wriggles farther down his bed. _Tiny puppy._ He thinks almost fondly. "Damn Hyugas. Make them pay." An eyebrow rises. _Tiny vindictive puppy._

But it's a new day, and the year's first snowfall, and somehow he's still alive.

 _At least you care._

And then he wanders over to at least stick his front door back onto the door frame. There they are, the hinges neatly melted.

It's the work of three minutes instead of half to stick the door back on, and he feels vaguely fatigued so he doesn't do the other one.

Instead he wanders back into his room. There are white tulips wrapped in ivy on his dresser. "Perfect love for all eternity?" He glances back over at the sleeping child still wrapped in warm blankets. Her face is half hidden, but the red fangs on her round cheeks are unmistakable. "I don't think that's what you meant."

Still the flowers are pretty enough, even though they're wilting, and maybe he should find a vase that isn't cracked?

Pakkun tumbles into his room, glances at the bed, and then back at him. "And you said that there was no girl, Boss." He points his short little tail at the sight. "I think that's the girl."

Hatake Kakashi bops him on the head. "You mean that's the puppy."

Pakkun considers the sleeping child still comfortably ensconced despite the snowfall outside the window. "No, Boss. That's a queen." If dogs had shoulders and if dogs could shrug, Pakkun would have at that moment. "Or at least, she'll grow up to be one at any rate."

And perhaps she might. Perhaps she just might if she lived long enough to grow up at all.

The long slow turn of years might not be so bad after all.

* * *

Ikigai-a reason for being, encompassing joy, a sense of purpose and meaning and a feeling of well-being. Derived from iki, meaning life and kai, meaning the realization of hopes and expectations.

* * *

 **A.N.** And I know that the poll says Itachi first, but somehow, Kakashi decided to make himself known today, so here's about four thousand words on why Kakashi hurts. And as always, he was being difficult so this percolated in my brain for two full **weeks** before anything happened, and then it all happened at once. Of course, Kakashi, being Kakashi, has to have weird reasons and symbolism for everything. So even chairs and vases and couches have some sort of broken significance in his brain.

There's a lot of symbolism and imagery going on in here. That and Kakashi just has a really broken mind that likes to give him PTSD, hallucinations, and general trauma. He really needs at least two years of hugs.

Thanks to rickrossed (Uchiha Fugaku is a major kuudere, also I hope you enjoy this chapter as it is in fact, Kakashi.), Alizay (I'm glad the last chapter was interesting to you. I did try to flesh out a character that receives very little characterization in most scenes that he's in. The result was very interesting, but I liked it.), Estarc (Yeah, Fugaku is very reserved in his day to day life, so writing him as a child and as a young adult was an interesting and fun experience especially since he doesn't talk much.) and LadyScatty (Nara-sensei and his Vicious Hag are one of the couples that influences Hana the most, and I do have a one shot planned for how Nara-sensei wooed his Vicious Hag to begin with. It should be called Tea House Off the Main Road, but I don't know when I'll find the time to write it.) for reviewing!

And for everyone that favorited and followed. You all are awesome. You all are great.

~Tavina.


	6. A Walk Through Fire

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.** That one chapter where Itachi feels about a million emotions, one right after the other.

* * *

"The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire."

-Ferdinand Foch

* * *

He is four and three months old when he enters the Academy. His Kaa-san and Tou-san walk him to the door, and before they get there, there is another family bidding their child goodbye. Another Kaa-san, another Tou-san, another child, and three rather large puppies wagging their tails.

The girl is about his age, maybe a little bit older, and he thinks that it would be nice to make a friend.

"Remember our pinky promise. No impressing them so much that they push you into graduating in a year." The man with pale blond hair hugs his child tightly, and Itachi ponders what it would be like if Tou-san ever did hug him like that. _It would be uncomfortable to be squished so._ He settles for that, instead of the gnawing desire in his stomach.

"Isn't that an unrealistic expectation?" Kaa-san murmurs from beside him.

He looks up, but Kaa-san does not explain and Tou-san does not respond. The other woman, the one with such wild hair, must have noticed them. She's a ninja, both she and the blond man are, they're wearing the standard flak jacket, but she doesn't look their way, just grabs the man by the back of his collar and tugs him away. "Oh come on, Kai-baka. She knows that already. Smarter than you think, much more than you perceive and all that."

The girl laughs, wild and free, and Itachi thinks it wouldn't be bad to have a friend who laughed like his cousin, Shisui. No, it wouldn't be so bad at all.

This family is _fascinating._ Even though they are made up of the same parts as his own, a Kaa-san, a Tou-san and a child, they are so very different. There's a sort of freedom in their interactions missing in his own life. He's very happy with his own life, it is just that he wants to _know_ what that sort of freedom felt like.

"Remember to do your very best, Itachi-kun." His Kaa-san sets her hands on his shoulders and gives them a gentle squeeze.

He nods. "I will."

From high up in the shadows, his Tou-san smiles, just a little bit, no one else would know, but Itachi knows. And he knows that Tou-san had seen him looking over at the other family, and Tou-san approved of the idea of befriending the girl.

* * *

Despite his want, he doesn't quite dare to sit with her. Her puppies take up the other spaces on her bench, and maybe she would think it rude if he just walked up and introduced himself. He sits down at a bench not too far away, and wonders if he could talk to her at lunch instead. _Yes._ He decides. _Talking at lunch would be good. I can offer to share my bento._

And then a Hyuga boy steps into the room, looks around, and makes a beeline for the girl, _his girl_ , she was supposed to be _Itachi's_ friend not the Hyuga's. And she moves over for him, pushing one of her puppies onto the floor with a light yip.

Before he can think to get up and move to join them an Aburame boy also wanders over to their table attempting to look casual, but completely failing. He too, gets a seat at her table.

Itachi feels annoyed. He feels hunted by the happy laughter that drifts by from their table. He's not there, but he should be there. _I was supposed to be the first friend._

* * *

This feels increasingly as if it is not the case.

"Inuzuka Hana." _So that's her name._ "I want to...be the best partner I can for the Triplets." _Those must be her dogs._ "And make my parents proud of me." _I want to make my parents proud of me too._

So when Funeno-sensei turns to him, he blurts out his dream with very little thought at all. "Uchiha Itachi, I want to be the youngest Uchiha to join ANBU." This is not a lie and it doesn't feel bad because ANBU had always been his dream and peace is his greatest dream of all, but his glance towards her and the two boys at her table does make him feel a little bad. _Why do I feel so mean towards those two? They didn't do anything wrong._

 _Maybe they won't be friends._ But that is cruel of him, to hope that she didn't make friends with them so that he can be the first friend. The Hyuga boy catches his eye, and Itachi realizes that the other boy is a part of the Branch House, but he doesn't wear anything over his forehead to hide the fact. And then he realizes that Hana's deskmates are both glaring at him, as if they could read his uncharitable thoughts. This unsettles him greatly, so he looks away.

* * *

He is pleasantly happy when Inuzuka Hana finishes second after him, but he suspects that she wasn't giving the run her all. "You could have finished more quickly than you did, but you stopped to run with Aburame. Why?" She'd been running at her desk mate's pace before Funeno-sensei had said something and she'd suddenly upped her pace. She could have done better.

This confuses him, because Kaa-san and Tou-san had always told him that he should strive to do the best that he possibly could. She doesn't look particularly happy to speak to him though. _She'd been so happy with those two earlier. I'm just trying to be friendly._

 _Why doesn't she like me?_

"I like Muta-kun, and he needed the encouragement." She can't quite look him in the eye as she answers, and Itachi is confused and hurt. _Did I do something? Am I worse than Hyuga and Aburame? Why?_

One of her puppies bumps her hand and barks. She barks back at the dog. _Are they actually talking? How does that work?_ "Do you actually understand him?" He asks. _She said she liked her partners right? Surely she wouldn't mind answering a question regarding them?_

Her eyes narrow. "Ichi's one of my partners. Of course, I understand him." And that just isn't nice at all. He'd been trying to ask her friendly questions and she became hostile and snappy. _It's only towards me though._

 _Maybe we shouldn't be friends._ But then he considers the other children in the same class. The girls would only want to squeal about how cute he is, the boys would only be jealous, but Inuzuka Hana, the one girl who didn't seem to think he is cute, didn't want to speak to him.

He goes home somewhat unsettled and despairing.

* * *

"Tou-san?" He asks as he enters his father's study room. "I have a question to ask you."

Tou-san sets down the papers that he'd been working on, and moves over on the chair so that Itachi can climb up to sit next him. "Your question?"

Itachi knows better than to be upset that Tou-san asked such short questions, and seemed so uninterested. Tou-san never really spoke in full sentences, and the fact that he's asked a question at all shows that he is interested. That and he's moved over to accommodate Itachi. It proves that he cared very much.

"The girl that I wanted to be friends with didn't want to be friends with me." He's ashamed that this phrase comes out almost like a plaintive whine rather than just a simple statement, but it hurts. It hurts so much to be rejected.

Tou-san just looks amused at this- _Itachi-kun not everyone wants to be friends with you._ "Why?" _Why do you want to be friends with her?_

"She's very interesting, Tou-san, but she doesn't seem to like me very much." And it's true that Inuzuka Hana is interesting. He wanted to know what made her family so different from his own, and what made her herself, what made her like everyone else's company and dislike his.

"If you believe her to be worthy." Tou-san sets a hand on his shoulder. "Then you will have to prove that you are worthy of her friendship." It's the longest statement that Tou-san's said in a long time, but he still has more to say. He pulls a small photograph towards them, from the edge of his desk, and hands it to Itachi. "These are my friends, but they weren't always so. Friendship is earned, Itachi-kun."

There's a younger Tou-san with another boy and a girl. They seem to be in a training field of some sort, their arms slung over Tou-san's shoulders. Both of the other people in the photograph have the red triangles on their cheeks, and the girl's grin is as wild as Inuzuka Hana's. Itachi flips the photograph over. _Inuzuka Kouga, Inuzuka Kosshi, and Uchiha Fugaku._

 _So that's why Tou-san approves. She's from the same family as his friends._

"Tou-san?" Itachi looks up and finds that Tou-san's eyes are closed. "Where are they now?" _I've never met them before._

"I'll tell you later." And Itachi hasn't seen his father in so much pain since the day last year when Kaa-san came back from the hospital and told them both that he wouldn't be getting a little sister after all. Perhaps it would be best to never ask.

* * *

He's nearly five when Kaa-san announces that he should look forward to a little sibling. And he doesn't want to say that he's happy, because what if it's like last time? _What if I never get a younger sibling ever?_

Tou-san hovers, and Itachi can't really say that Tou-san's worried, because Tou-san doesn't worry, but he hovers. He's ignoring the paperwork buildup on his desk, coming home earlier, and earlier as the months go by until eventually he just stays in the house and steps out only when Kaa-san goes to visit the hospital.

Kaa-san finds it frustrating enough. "Anata, I am not some doll. There is no need for you to hover." And Itachi knows this very well because it is Kaa-san who oversees his shuriken and kunai practice.

Kaa-san had been a jonin before she retired to be his kaa-san.

Tou-san is deeply unconvinced. "Mikoto." And it something about the look in his eyes that makes Kaa-san relent.

"Very well, Anata. Please make some tea."

* * *

His younger sibling comes into the world a morning at the tail end of July. He and Tou-san are welcomed into Kaa-san's hospital room as soon as the baby starts to cry.

"Say hello to your little brother, Itachi-kun." Kaa-san looks fine, but he's more interested in the child in her arms. _Is this what it means to be an older brother?_

He steps forward to poke the child's cheek. _A life. A new life._

 _Hello, I'm your Niisan, Itachi, and I'll protect you forever._

"Have you decided on a name?" Kaa-san glances up at Tou-san and he does too.

"Yes. Sasuke. Uchiha Sasuke." He's never seen Tou-san smile so brightly. _Did Tou-san smile like this when I was born?_ He turns back to Sasuke. _Everyone loves you very much, but I love you the most._

"Sasuke? But that's..." He doesn't pay too much attention to what Kaa-san and Tou-san are saying,

"Yes. I've already asked Sandaime-sama if we could use his father's name." His little brother would have a hero's name. It makes him very happy.

"Oh I see." Kaa-san relaxes back on the hospital pillows.

Tou-san picks Sasuke up and smiles so brightly that Itachi knows that this time is different from last time. _Tou-san and Kaa-san will never be sad again. Sasuke will live, unlike imouto._ "We should raise him to never dishonor his name."

* * *

Kaa-san and Tou-san are out, and he is alone with Sasuke. It is here that everything begins to unravel.

The changing air brought with it a malevolent chakra so strong it stifled Sasuke's soft cries. Throughout the village, the clanging of bells ring out in pandemonium. _That's the village wide alarm._ He stands up and moves towards the shelters. Tou-san had always said that if he heard the alarm he should head towards the shelters in the mountains before anything else.

 _Safety. Sasuke needs to be safe._ But there's a gnawing worry in his breastbone that Kaa-san and Tou-san are not safe. That they are somewhere out there, and the chakra will get them. Death comes even for those that don't deserve it. He doesn't know what the chakra is, where it came from, or what it is doing until it smashes a house in front of him.

Blood leaks out into the street, he clutches Sasuke tighter, and hurries down the street. _Life dies. Life is born._

 _Life dies. Life is born._

"Otou-san!" "Okaa-san!" He pauses at the mouth of an alleyway, just in time to see Inuzuka Hana take his cousin Izumi by the wrist and race towards him. The street behind them explodes into rubble and ash.

One of the dogs prods him forwards and barks something. The three of them stagger down the street, but he still needs to find the rest of his family, despite the clansmen and women all around him. _Kaa-san. Tou-san._ "You guys should be okay going to the shelter."

He's about to leave, but she catches his wrist in a grip tight enough to bruise. "You're coming with us. You have to look after your brother and yourself right now, there's no time to look for your cousins or your family or anyone else." _That's...that's right. I have to protect Sasuke right now. Running around alone with him is dangerous._ She drag him along as they hurry towards the shelter. "There's no way for you to help with any of this."

He pulls his sleeve from her grip, but doesn't run off. "Why?" _I thought you didn't like me?_ She doesn't respond and they stagger into the shelter of the mountain and make themselves small in the back of one of the dugouts.

* * *

"What day is it?" She asks, and it's the first thing she's said since they ended up in the back of this shelter.

Itachi yawns. "It's nearly the eleventh I think." _But the date isn't important._

"Is your brother alright?" She asks, a note of concern in her voice as she gestures to Sasuke who is still lying quietly in the sling protectively cradled at his side.

Itachi blinks. "Why wouldn't he be?" _I didn't expect you to ask about Sasuke too._

"He's not crying." She gestures around the large cavern. "All the other babies are crying, but your brother and Kiba aren't." And he doesn't know who Kiba is, but he presumes that she's referring to the little boy that she has cradled in her lap.

Itachi blinks again. "Sasuke is normally very quiet." Not silent normally, but still very quiet. He is confident that Sasuke is just fine.

"But Kiba isn't normally quiet at all." There's a sob in her voice that sounds like heartbreak, so Itachi moves closer so that they are closer together.

"Is he a cousin of yours?" _I didn't know that there'd been a new birth in your family. Tou-san and Kaa-san did not say._

Her teeth clack together and her lips draw back in a snarl. "He's my _brother._ "

 _Oh. So she's an elder sibling too. Just like me._ Once again, their families are parallels of each other. A Kaa-san. A Tou-san. Two children. "Oh. I didn't know that was why you didn't come to the Academy for a while." She's been absent, and even though she didn't like him, he's missed her, missed her cheerful laughter and good natured ribbing of the two boys who shared her desk.

"I'm sorry for snapping at you." And she sounds so genuinely sorry.

He looks down at Sasuke and feels the walls that Inuzuka Hana had built between them thaw. "That's okay."

* * *

They'd been sitting for another hour before he works up the courage to ask her the question that had been plaguing him all night. "Why did you not let me leave?"

"I couldn't let you get buried under a mountain of rubble or stepped on. You could've died out there."

Her answer is kinder than he expected. _You care if I get hurt or not? I thought you hated me?_

He looks away. "But you don't like me."

"But you're still my classmate." She protests. "I wouldn't have just left you out there to die."

"Oh." The thought makes him warm. _I can be your friend after all._

She leans forward and pokes Sasuke on the cheek. "Who were you looking for?"

"My parents." He says quietly. "I'm sure they're out there directing civilians to take cover." For now he would trust that Tou-san and Kaa-san are safe. He has to protect Sasuke and that meant staying in the shelter.

"Your Otou-san works for the Military Police, right?" She smooths down her brother's hair, and turns her big brown eyes up at him.

 _You know about that too?_ His mind goes back to the photograph that Tou-san had shown him so many months ago. To the boy and the girl with their equally wild hair and laughing eyes. _Do you know who Tou-san's friends are?_ "He's the Captain of the Konoha Military Police Force. It makes him very busy." As she'd asked about his Tou-san, he thinks it's safe to ask about hers."What does your Otou-san do?"

"He's dead, Uchiha-kun." It clearly hurts her to think about it. Their families didn't match anymore. He couldn't imagine what life without Tou-san would be like. "He worked in RnD." And he sees the blond haired man in his mind's eye, walking his daughter to school, that first morning squeezing her in a hug so tight, the way that she'd laughed and bounced after him in the afternoons.

"I'm sorry." And he is so genuinely sorry. _I didn't know. Please don't be mad._ "I saw him pick you up from the Academy. He loved you a lot."

She laughs quietly at him. "You didn't know." But then she smiles, even though she still must be sad, she's smiling brightly as if she is remembering something wonderful. "He still loves me a lot."

 _Death doesn't take what we love away?_ She's using present tense. _Death doesn't take away love._ He decides. _Life dies, but love lives forever._

From beyond the doorway of the shelter, the sun weeps tears of blood as it rises over Konohagakure.

* * *

"Itachi-kun?" Kaa-san calls through his closed door. "Itachi-kun, your team is here to greet you." He pulls the blankets over his head and shudders.

He can still the blood rising into the morning air, could still see Temma standing before him, could still hear Shinko's scream.

 _I don't have a team anymore. They're gone. Temma's gone._ He hadn't liked the other boy very much when he was alive.

But now that he is dead, dead, dead, so very dead- _Life dies-_ Itachi regrets that he never spoke without somehow insulting him. He hadn't meant for the other boy to die for him.

Kaa-san's footsteps move away, and he doesn't know how long he'd been simply curled in his bed and shuddering before the door slides open.

He hadn't heard the man walking down the hall at all. The man leaning against his now open door frame doesn't wear the standard Konoha hitai-ate on his person, but he does wear a flak jacket, his hair in a high tail and dark green eye makeup. _A Nara._

"You're going to make us late, Uchiha-kun." This must be his new sensei, but he doesn't want a new sensei. He wants to pay for his mistakes. He wants his old team. If he could turn back time, if he could have died instead of Temma-

"Don't care." He pulls the blankets around himself tighter, it doesn't help with the cold.

The man walks over to sit on the edge of his bed, and an instant later he's wrapped tightly in warm arms. "It hurts to lose a friend, doesn't it?" The man's voice is thick with feeling. "I promise you, you won't lose anymore friends, Itachi-kun." There's a hand carding through his hair, and Itachi's just a little bit warmer. "I'm Nara Ensui, Itachi-kun, and I take care of my team."

Itachi can't help it. He can feel the tears that he couldn't cry before leak out. His shoulders shake and he sobs quietly that morning even though he knows that he shouldn't. _I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't good enough. I'll drag the team down._

* * *

His new team is comprised of his Sensei, the Hyuga boy that he'd disliked that first morning during the Academy, and Hana-chan.

But Hyuga Tokuma, despite his near constant ribbing, is nothing like what Itachi expects a Hyuga to be. He's loud and brash and good natured, and refuses to remember social cues. Now that Itachi thinks about it, it reminds him a great deal about his other friend, the Hyuga's actions remind him of Hana-chan.

That does not mean that they work well together though. _We've left Hana-chan to run by herself with a target painted on her back._

Hana's been cornered by a missing nin, and even though this isn't like last time, Itachi flies through four hand signs and sets the man on fire.

"No!" She shrieks and run forwards. "The scroll is flammable."

And he remembers what they are here for, sees her flip over the charred body with her bare hands and the scroll crumbles to pieces beneath her touch. "Sorry Hana." Itachi whispers as he comes to stand behind her. "I wasn't thinking." _She had everything under control. It was fine but then I messed it up._

"Of course you weren't thinking. I had that perfectly-" Her glare and admonishment is paused by Tokuma-kun's return.

"So. what did I miss?" Tokuma-kun has the other missing nin slung over his shoulder. "And please don't tell me nothing."

"We've failed the mission." Hana states in the plainest and baldest terms possible. _Failure. Failure. You're nothing but a failure._

Tokuma's left eyebrow rises. "We've never failed a mission. What's the problem?"

 _They've never failed before me? They had a perfect mission record?_

Hana waves a hand at the charred corpse. "Well, the scroll of priceless paintings is completely ash right now, Toku. Considering that we were supposed to retrieve it at first priority instead of killing the people who stole it, I would suppose that we've failed the mission." And it is only now that both of them spot the red swelling of her hands.

"You have burns, Hana." Tokuma observes and he whirls around with murder in his eyes. "What did you _do?_ " He hisses at Itachi and advances, step by step with veins bulging even more prominently on his temples. "And don't tell me that our opponents did this to her because they're from Kusa, so I doubt they have katon jutsus to burn people with."

Itachi doesn't look him in the eye, can't look him in the eye. "I'm sorry..."

"You're sorry? You're sorry?!" Tokuma darts forwards. "Do you even know anything about being part of a team?" There's a whoosh of air as he attempts to slap Itachi across the face. The dodging is reflex, but Itachi feels bad about it anyway. "You. Don't. Hurt. Teammates!"

The both of them freeze. Toku's hands still raised in a Jyuken stance, and Itachi's hands together in a seal. _I don't know how we got here, like this._ "You don't say." Sensei's sarcastic drawl sounds out across the now deserted square. "And what are you trying to do, Tokuma-kun?" Sensei turns his distinctly unimpressed face at Itachi. "And why are you attempting to burn your teammate, Itachi-kun?"

Sensei rubs his face with a hand as his shadow retreats back to normal. "All three of you were completely disappointing." He turns to Hana and Itachi can feel the bile rising in his throat. "This is the first time that you put a mission directive above the well being of your comrades, Hana-chan. Why were you digging through the ash instead of trying to figure out _why_ Itachi wanted to protect you so badly?"

All three of them stare down at their feet, unsure of what to do.

The trip home is a disaster and spent in miserly silence.

* * *

"Well, I think Hana-chan knows what her problem is. She can go sit in Mufu-an and think about the consequences of being irrationally angry at a teammate when a mission is still ongoing." Ensui-sensei casts a very unimpressed look at Toku and Itachi. "You two though. You're coming with me." He sets a hand on each of their shoulders, and frog marches them down the street.

Itachi does not protest. Neither does Tokuma.

When they reach the bend in the river Sensei suddenly pauses and with a firm push, sends them both tumbling into the river. He can't quite help the yelp that escapes his lips, and the simultaneous yip means that Tokuma feels the same way.

They both go crashing into the river.

They sit in the shallow Naka River, and look at each other's drenched forms, and then at Sensei who is still casually slouched above on the banks, and break out into side splitting laughter. _We're not that different after all._

Sensei's lips curl upwards in a lazy smile. "We'll learn to get along, won't we?"

* * *

They're six days into the return trip from Kusa, and Tokuma's taking point at the moment, but his Byakugan isn't active. It is only half a day's average walking pace from Konoha.

Tokuma is first. Hana-chan and her dogs are next, and he and Sensei are moseying along behind.

"Tokuma-kun?" Itachi calls.

"Call me Toku-kun." Tokuma throws over his shoulder. "No one calls me Tokuma except you and people who don't know me very well."

"I don't think I should do that." He's hesitant to shorten his teammate's name. _He is still a Hyuga. Will his clan not find it offensive?_

Toku snorts. "You sound like Hiashi-sama and the Elders. They're the only ones who call me Tokuma-kun like it's my real name." _So his clan would find it offensive, but he doesn't care much for what they think._

Sensei has his hands laced behind his head, and he walks beside him staring up at the clouds. "Just call him Toku-kun, Itachi-kun. It'll make him feel better."

One of Hana's dogs barks something, and she pats him on the head with an answering bark.

"Alright, Toku...kun." Itachi says. "Can you come over for team dinner next time?"

Toku turns back to look at him. "Your parents won't-" And he drops like a puppet with cut strings, a spray of red rising into the still air. And it is exactly like last time. So much like last time that he freezes in his tracks, caught in the replay of memory and fact. _No. No. Not Toku-kun. Not when he just told me that he won't mind if I shortened his name. No. No. Nonono. He is my friend._

"TOKU!" Hana shrieks as she moves forwards, her dogs half a beat behind, but Sensei's shadow snakes out and freezes her before she can move any further towards the man who's kodachi still drips with Toku-kun's blood.

A sob rips from his throat. _Why are you hunting me? What did I do to you?_

 _What did Toku-kun ever do to you?_

"Tell me." Sensei drawls as he walks forwards, his hands in the rat seal. "Who are you?"

The masked man takes a step forwards towards Hana, and he and Sensei clash kodachi against kunai, metal glittering in the hot noon sun. "Who are you?" Sensei asks again.

The man's only reply is another strike. He's pushing Sensei back, back towards them, and the killing intent in the air heavy, so heavy that he wants to collapse in the dirt, but he has eyes only for the slumped form in the road, blood seeping into the dusty earth.

Two of Hana's dogs press into his sides, and he doesn't know what to do. _Toku-kun. Toku-kun. Toku..._ One of Hana's Triplets races down the dusty road, towards what must be home and safety, but he cannot move. He's frozen, frozen-Sensei's on one knee and there's another person that will die because of him.

Sensei had always seemed safe, strong, and unbreakable. Sensei had promised. _You won't lose anymore friends, Itachi-kun._ But this is an event that not even Sensei can beat, and there is blood leaking from the wound in Sensei's stomach.

"One strike." The masked man says clearly, the first words he's said at all, his kodachi raised above his head.

"NO!" And Hana's in front of Sensei, her arms spread wide, her knees crumpling, and Itachi sees red.

 _You will not take her. Not her. Take me instead. I was supposed to die last time. Not her._ His hands flash through the signs of his own accord, red bleeding all around him. _Hana, Hana, please._ "Katon: Great Fireball." The growing heat of the flames covers the world in a red glow. When the flames disperse, the masked man is gone and only the pieces of his team remains. _Is he gone? Is Hana still alive?_ "Are you okay?" The words fall from his lips, and Hana nods, but turns towards their sensei instead.

Sensei will stay alive. Sensei would still be safe. Itachi's feet draws him towards Toku-kun, who is still sprawled in the road, instead. _Please, please have there be a pulse. Kami-sama, I will give you anything, please don't let him be dead._

He crouches down and flips the long haired Hyuga over. The slash had gone over his chest instead of the throat like last time. He tries to be grateful. He presses two fingers to Toku-kun's neck, and there is a pulse, fluttering and faint, but Toku's still alive. _Thank Kami._

He feels tears gather in his eyes and threaten to slip over as he kneels in the dusty road. _Thank you. Thank you. Thank you._

"Hana-chan, he's still bleeding." His voice cracks. "I felt a pulse but I don't know how to stop his bleeding."

Hana stumbles to her feet and staggers towards them. "Where's he hurt?"She pulls her pack closer towards her and uncorks a bottle. "Pass me your bandages. I gave mine to Sensei." _Yes. We have to make sure that we preserve the life that's still there._

Toku's eyes open, but they are unfocused, white and blank. He can still pick out Hana though, so Itachi knows that he is not too far gone. "Hana-chan? How bad is it?" Toku winces as he speaks, each word painful, each breath shallow and fast.

"Hush." Hana brushes his bangs back from his sweat covered forehead in a tender gesture at odds with the fury in her voice. "Hush. You've gotta survive this." Her mouth tightens to a thin grim line. "We're going to find our vengeance, Toku. We're going to take him down."

"We all of us couldn't take him this time." Toku's eyes flutter closed. "We might all get butchered if we go hunting for him."

"We'll get stronger." Itachi whispers, and helps Hana pull their teammate up so they could wrap the bandages tighter. "We have to get stronger. He's still after me." And Hana's strength has reminded him that if he wants to stay alive, if he wants the people he loves to stay alive then he would have to beat the man.

He would have to kill the man with his bare hands even though he couldn't manage it this time. He has never _wanted_ to kill anyone before, but this masked man he wants to slaughter, he wants to the man _hurt_ , to hurt like he's never hurt before. _He will not take from me. Not Hana, not Sensei, not Toku, not Kaa-san, not Tou-san, not Sasuke. No one. No one ever again._

They share a look over Toku's slouched shoulder. _I want to kill him. I will help you kill him._ The answer to his resolve is in Hana's hard brown eyes.

"How is Toku-kun?" Sensei's wrapped his wound already, but he moves very slowly towards them.

Itachi rises to help him. "Toku-kun's been bandaged. I think Hana-chan has sent the Haimaru Brothers back to the village for help."

They sit there, in the road, as the sun gradually slides downwards towards the horizon. The only sound all around them, is Toku's breathing, labored and slow.

* * *

Itachi steps out of the exam room his hands shaking as he trails them through the third Haimaru brother's fur. "Do you forgive me?" He asks, and feels as though he wants to cry. There is a burning in his eyes, but the burning in his heart is worse.

It feels as though someone had lit his heart on fire. His team. He'd burned his team and Hana had screamed-He couldn't keep thinking of it.

The dog in front of him licks his nose and barks. "I suppose you forgive me since it wasn't real." Itachi whispers, and sets his forehead against the dog's. He knows it wasn't real, the mud clones were simply mud clones, but it had felt real. Intelligent dark eyes regard him with what might be real concern, when he wraps his arms around the dog's neck and sobs tearlessly. _I am sorry._

But his sharingan had been active. The images of skin melting, hair going up in flames, the sound of screams-he stops thinking that thought as well.

When he feels well enough, he climbs to his feet and races towards the room where he'd actually left Hana, and she is there, leaning against the wall. _Still alive. Still alive._ The burning in his heart eases just a little, but his eyes are still stinging. "Hana!" He draws more chakra to his eyes and imprints the image of Hana still alive into his skull. _You are alive. You are still alive._

"What's the matter?" She turns to look at him, concern and worry in her dark eyes.

"I killed you." He whispers. "I know it wasn't actually you, but it's strange to see you right now." The Haimaru brother rejoins his pack sister and pack brother. Itachi is too elated to care. _I did not kill her. They didn't die._

"Same here." She peels herself off of the wall. "Don't worry about it, Ita-kun I'm not offended."

He shudders. "I don't think this is the most welcoming place." He slips his hand in hers and revels in the fact that he still can, that her hand is warm and not ash. "We should go wait outside Toku-kun's room for him." Now that his heart is under control again, he can think logically.

Toku is kind. Too kind. _How will he live after this?_

She nods. "Yes, that would be best."

* * *

He's used two fire jutsu in the space of five minutes, breathing hard, but still mostly fine. This match will not be an easy one by any means.

The sandy haired boy across the ring smirks. "I didn't think the Uchiha were this weak."

Itachi grits his teeth. _If I didn't want to hear your dying screams, then I would have burnt you to a crisp already. Push me further and I just might not care._ "I won't be dying here today."

They flash through hand signs together, and Itachi blows out a cloud of fire, and just as the flames are wrapped around the enemy he sees Hana instead, and she is screaming. "No. No. No." He staggers back, eyes burning.

 _Hana. Hana._ He can't breath, can only watch, can only watch as her hair burns, can smell the scent of scorched flesh, can see her skin peel, can see her eyes accuse him. _I loved you, Itachi. I called you friend. Why are you killing me?_

And he cannot move, cannot turn his head to check where the enemy is, because if Hana is burning, then the enemy isn't burning, but-his eyes are weeping.

He can feel his tears slide down his cheeks and drip wetly off of his chin. "I'm sorry." It doesn't work, she's still burning. "I'm sorry!" He repeats, louder. It doesn't help. She's crumbling to ash before his eyes, horror in every inch of her disappearing form.

"Itachi!" A scream rises into the air and it sounds like Hana, but it cannot be Hana because she is dead, ashes blowing away in the wind. "Genjustu!" And suddenly he sees the truth, and the lies overlaid. A blind fury rises in his throat and it howls inside him. He punches the enemy before him in the jaw and pulls out the thing that Hana had slipped in his his hand earlier.

The resulting explosion throws him back, a ringing in his ears, and only then does he register the pain. His eyes and his shoulder, and every part of him feels like it's on fire. He tips forwards into someone's arms as a voice screams something about a forfeiture from very far away. _What's going on?_ He wipes at his still weeping eyes, and recognizes after a long moment that this is blood. His eyes are bleeding.

 _Mangekyo?_ The world is blurry and indistinct, and he feels so drained. Hana's alive. Hana's dead. He's watched her burn but he doesn't understand. _She's alive? She's dead? I saw her ashes. I killed her._

 _I killed her._

"Itachi-kun?" Sensei asks, hands against his hands are calloused, far more so that for someone who merely worked in Crypt, but they are gentle. _Why are you tender? I killed Hana, and she is the most precious of your students. You love her most._ "We're going to go and see a medic now, alright?" _That sounds needed. Sensei please. Take me away. Let it end._

Carefully, Itachi nods. His eyes slip shut. "Thank you, Sensei." _Thank you. So tired. Hana's dead. I want to die too._

And then he falls into something else, a waking dream perhaps. The only constant is the warmth of the arms around him. _I don't deserve it, Sensei. I killed Hana._

* * *

He is unsure of how much time that passes, but they are somewhere else now, and there's a bed that Sensei sets him down on, because the rough cotton sheets chafes against his hands and his shoulder. "Get out!" There's the sound of scurrying feet. "I need your permission to do this, Itachi-kun." A hand against his forehead. "It will help with the pain."

The voices come from very far away.

His lips are heavy, and he speaks in sobs. "Hana. Hana. HANA!" There is only Hana. It does not matter what Sensei does to him. He's failed his team. He's killed his best friend. He deserves to feel this pain. He deserves to feel it forever. "HANA!"

The hand against his forehead smooths his bangs away. "Hush, child. You'll be alright." _But Hana's dead. Nothing will ever be alright again._ "Down in the valley, the valley so low." The hands are resting on his temples now, and Sensei's soft baritone comes from very far away. "Hang your head over, hear the wind blow." And the grief recedes. It recedes even though he doesn't want it to.

"Roses love sunshine, violets love dew." His heartbeat slows. "The angels in heaven know I love you."

The pain goes away, up through his temples to somewhere else. "Down in the valley, the valley so low...Hang your head over and hear the wind blow...the angels in heaven know I love you."

Itachi slips deeper into a comforting darkness, and he does not dream.

* * *

He wakes up in the morning even though he doesn't want to. "Hana?" He whispers. _What happened to Hana?_

She appears, not as though she's come from a dream to haunt him. Her eyes are puffy and there's tear tracks on her face. She does not look beautiful, but she looks so very real. "Ita-kun?"

Her hands are around his, and he no longer feels as though he's frozen and cold. Her hands are warm. "I'm sorry, I killed you." He whispers. "I'm sorry." _I want you to be real. Are you real?_

But her expression convinces him that this is in fact real. It is impossible that she could look so concerned for him if she died by his hand. It is only now that he remembers his eyes, remembers the truth overlaid with the lies and remembers that Hana is alive. That no one had died except perhaps the enemy that he does not remember rolling from the explosion.

"Wh-What happened out there, Ita-kun?" Her hands are warm, and he is no longer cold, but how could he tell her what he'd seen? How could he tell her that he'd killed her twice?

Knowing that she's still alive isn't the same as feeling it.

Itachi turns his face away. "It's a clan secret, Hana-chan." But it feels wrong to leave it like this. _She deserves to know._ "I'll tell you later." He promises. _When it doesn't feel like I'm on fire and freezing to death. When I can talk about it without weeping. I'll tell you then, Hana._

* * *

"He set fire to the world around him, but never let a flame touch her."

-silent perception

* * *

 **A.N.** And here we have seven thousand words about Itachi and his early friendship with Hana, right up until the Iwa Chunin Exams. It doesn't cover everything, but I didn't want this to get too long. Itachi feels a lot of different things in this one, but I'm rather proud of A Walk Through Fire.

And oh my god, the feedback for the Kakashi chapter is tremendous. Thank you so much. *Bows*

Thanks to rickrossed (Yes, Kakashi does have a few problems...), Yuki Suou, LadyScatty (I can't wait for Hana to grow up either. There's so much for her to do, and it's alright. I've changed ships a bunch during the writing of this as well.), iluvstorys (Don't worry, the poll wasn't up for very long. I just wanted a bit of feedback since I got a bit stuck on both of these chapters.), Demona Evernight (I'm glad that you like this! Kakashi is about 50% troll most of the time.), HiddenYori, LittleMissSugarLess, May525 (There will be another thing on Fugaku. It's in the works and currently titled And Yet Still, Sunrise.), Guest (I can tell you that you are not the only one who ships Hana-Kakashi. You are in good company with about half of the readership of Bloodless.) and libraryrockerr (Angst-kashi needs all the hugs.) for reviewing!

And to everyone who favorited and followed.

~Tavina


	7. And This Too, Shall Pass

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.** This is written in a sort of five+one format, and thus can be alternatively titled, five people Inuzuka Tsume buried, and the two she did not.

* * *

"And this too, shall pass"

-Persian Adage

* * *

Inuzuka Tsume attends her first funeral on an summer day when she is nine. It is not so much a funeral as it is a memorial, a declaration of open war, as Kaa-san insists upon an open casket.

"I want to show the world what they did to him." She'd said, standing before her four children in a line. "And you will remember why we fight."

"Yes, of course, Kaa-san." Kosshi-neesan responds. There's an anger burning in her eyes that Tsume cannot match. Kegawa-nii and Teiru-nii join in with affirmations of their own, but her 'yes, of course, Kaa-san' is stuck in her throat.

Tsume just finds that the sight of her Otou-san turns her stomach and makes her throat constrict. He'd been Konoha's diplomat in Kumo, and very rarely home. She remembers him only distantly-a large hand ruffling her hair, loud, booming laughter, and dancing golden eyes.

The body-if can be called a body that is-before looks nothing like the Otou-san that she remembers. _Pieces. They'd sent him back in pieces._ Blood plastered, hair torn, nails ripped from the roots, eyes gouged out-she doesn't want to look, but she can't look away either. _What does this even mean?_

It's noon. The light is bright and blinding. The sun is burning sweat down her back in her black kimono, but Tsume's cold, and if she's less disciplined, if she isn't the daughter of wolves, then she would shiver. Kuromaru whines and nudges her hand. She pats his head mechanically, hand moving up and down, but she can't feel his fur beneath her fingertips at all.

Kegawa-nii squeezes her other hand, but doesn't say anything. There are no words he can say to her, because Kaa-san would judge their strength and find it wanting. He's made concession enough as it is, to stand beside her.

Kaa-san stands before the casket, her shoulders thrown back, eyes dry and hard. "They think that they can break us with this show of strength." She roars at their gathered clan. "But they do not know us."

"No." The clan echoes back. "They do not know us."

"This is not strength." Kaa-san hisses. "This is war. And we will burn their village down around their ears. We will slaughter."

"This is war." The clan murmurs, layers and layers voices overlapping and bumping into each other like waves on a beach. "We will slaughter."

"And we will feast on their blood." Kaa-san throws her head back, hands gripping the edge of the coffin so hard that they shake, and howls.

The sound will haunt her forever Tsume's sure. She's sure, but she's also howling, salt stinging at her eyes, and all around her, every member of a clan of 300 raises their voices to the noonday sun.

* * *

Six years later, Kaa-san falls on a mission, and the clan is again gathered for a funeral. It's Kosshi-neesan who stands straight shouldered, and hard eyed in front of their mother's open coffin. "We have lost a great deal." She says to the crowd, to Kegawa-nii's wife who is not one of them exactly, and Cousin Kouga nods from right beside her.

"But they cannot break us, because we are a pack." Tsume _likes_ Cousin Kouga well enough most days, but she likes him better when he's charming and laughing.

This hard eyed, angry man by Kosshi-neesan's side is nothing like him and the disparity is disconcerting in all the wrong ways.

That morning, the pack howls for their lost mother, and Tsume comes to a decision of her own.

When the pack disperses, she finds herself standing in front of the shrine, her mind racing. _Okami-sama. You know love don't you?_ She lights the incense for the three deities in enshrined in this holy room and struggles to organize her prayer into words.

Their Wolf-God ancestor had left his godhood behind for a time, to live on earth with a mortal woman. He'd defied tradition and the other gods themselves for his love. And his children-Tsume's eyes find the silver haired Yama and his sister, the black wolf Yasuka,-his children were proof of his love.

She finally settles for a simple request. _Grant me the ability to love as I please. This life is too short to live without him._

She stands there for a long time, thinking of Iwa no Kaito's contemplative expression as he tries to balance a kunai on the tip of his nose. Thinking of his small smiles, and wide blue gray eyes like the autumn sky. She does not think that she could live without his off key singing and the way he taps his fingers across the edge of every cup as he dries them.

Does not think that her life could be complete without his arm around her waist, his utter dorkiness when he's excited, and the way he'd dance in time with his singing when he thinks that no one else is around to see. The clan would not approve, but she rather thinks that Okami would.

She stands there until the incense burns down, and then she clears the ashes away, her conflicted mind made up at last. _I'll marry him before I die, even if the pack does not approve._

And then she leaves, but she forgets that Okami's love had not ended happily, had not been milk and honey, sunshine and roses. She does not want to remember the demons that'd killed his mortal wife, and the way that her soul would never be returned to him. A mortal soul does not dwell in the realm of the gods after all.

Death had separated her ancestor and his love. She does not remember because she does not want to.

* * *

It is her Sensei's funeral that she misses, and that she can't forgive herself for missing. She'd been tracking a band of Konoha's missing nin in Kiri for four months before she hears the news that Hatake Sakumo has failed a mission for the first time in living memory.

"That must bother Sensei." Kuromaru remarks. "He had a perfect mission record before this."

Tsume hums absently in agreement. It surely must, but it's not close to her heart. "We've got another eight targets to chase right?" As she moves forwards, the fishline of fresh scrolls hanging from her belt rustles. There are fifteen scrolls on the line, and another ten empty ones in her pouch.

They are black edged, the code for sealed bodies. Her hunt has been going well.

"Yeah." Kuromaru barks. "I've caught scent of another one."

Her answering smile is bloody. "Let's hunt."

It is two more months before she hears that Sa-Sensei had failed because he'd cared too much for the chunin that he'd been leading instead of monitoring the location Kumo's jinchuruki. Blood had been spilled in Fire Country.

She shrugs and keeps forward with her terminating objectives. There are only three more men that she has to hunt through the wet swampland before she can go home. Home to her husband working down in RnD. Home to blond hair and blue eyes and a soft spoken man who liked to sing in the kitchen.

 _I'll go and visit Sa-Sensei and Kakashi-kun then. If nothing else, Kakashi-kun will be around to understand Sensei's struggle. They're so close._

Eight days before she gets back to Konoha, on the border of Fire Country and the Land of Hot Water, she hears that Hatake Sakumo is dead.

She shakes the news away, because surely it's a lie. _A lie and a bad one at that. Sa-Sensei's too good for someone to even land a hit on him, much less kill him._

But she picks up the pace, unease eating at her heart. For there to be rumors that Sensei had died, there has to be something bad happening. To hear such a blatant lie inside Fire Country means that Sensei might even be in the hospital. She doesn't entirely want to know what put him there.

Two days out from Konoha, she hears that Konoha's White Fang had committed suicide to cleanse his sins from the Hatake name.

She nearly collapses right there. _I should have just said screw it. I should have just come home as soon as I could._

But beneath her grief is the anger that screams down every vein and artery. _What sins did he commit? Trying to protect people that weren't pack? Trying to make sure that everyone made it back alive?_

 _The Hell'd he think he do? What would drive him to this?_

Her arrival into Konoha is quiet. It's an hour before dawn. A summer breeze blows trash down the street, and she fights the urge to run to the Tower. Instead, she settles for a brisk walk, because she is seventeen years old, and nearly a special Jonin. And she's too old to run when she's not hunting.

She does not really believe that her Sensei is dead.

She doesn't believe it until Hokage-sama steeples his fingers over the paperwork on his desk as she turns her scrolls in, and shakes his head. "Go down to the cemetery, Tsume-chan." He says gently, and she feels the ground disappear beneath her feet.

But somehow, she doesn't fall through the earth into the black ribbon of space. Somehow, she's still standing, and able to walk down to the cemetery on her own two feet.

* * *

She finds Kakashi-kun stubbing his toe repeatedly against a freshly dug grave- _All that's left of Sensei is a stone above the ground-_ , shrieking wordlessly at the sky. The sight is so miserable that she doesn't even really know what to do. _He and Sensei had been so close. How do I tell him that it's alright to cry?_

"Kakashi-kun?" She tries to set a hand on his shoulder, and he shrugs it away roughly.

"GO away!" His voice cracks in the middle of his exclamation, and she can tell that he's been screaming until his throat gave out. She really can't say that she understands his pain. She'd barely known her own father- _He'd been buried with blood on his face, his eyes gouged out, in fourteen different pieces. They were never able to find all of Inuzuka Ryuketsu._

 _I imagine it's different for you._

"Pain's fine you know?" She's trying to comfort him, but she can't even really comfort herself. It's too unreal. _Sensei ought not to be dead._

 _Sensei isn't dead. This isn't real._

"I'm not in pain." Kakashi hisses. "I hate him. He's stupid."

Tsume reels back. "What did you say?"

"I said." Kakashi begins, with a shocking amount of bitterness. "I hate him. I'm glad he's dead. He was a useless waste of space."

She doesn't realize that she's slapped him, slapped a child-some part of her mind whispers that he was never a child to begin with, he'd always been scarily intelligent-in anger. "GET OUT." Her lips draw back as she bares her teeth at him. "Get out, you ungrateful brat."

He stands there, stupidly in the rising light of morning, and Tsume wants nothing more than to grab him by the back of the neck and shake some sense into him, but she doesn't. Instead, she bites back the angry words she's ready to spit in his direction. _It was your callousness that killed Sensei. He wouldn't care about the opinions of a few villagers. It's your opinion that broke him open._

 _You killed Sensei._ She doesn't say. Her teeth grind against her bottom lip in an effort to just keep her mouth shut. Keep the angry words in, they are too hurtful to say.

In the end, she's the one that turns and leaves, and she bites her lip the entire way, enough to taste blood.

* * *

She goes home. Home to her house with Kai-baka. He turns to her, eyes questioning, and she grabs him by the front of his shirt and kisses him. It's messy and bruising and nothing like how she'd normally treat him.

He tastes like sweet rice and mint. And she's sure she tastes like blood.

"Tsu-chan?" He asks when she pulls away.

"Sensei's dead." She replies. She doesn't say that she found Kakashi by his father's gravestone. She doesn't say that she slapped a child today and she might never forgive herself for not paying her last respects to Sensei.

She doesn't say that she's ashamed that she wants nothing to do with Hatake Kakashi. _Sensei loved his son dearly._

 _I can't even look at him. I slapped him over Sensei's last resting place._

 _What sort of human being am I?_

Kai-baka cups her face in his hands and kisses her forehead. "I made you food." At that is all the comfort that they'd be able to know. Death is common; death is universal; and the dead do not weep for the living, but the living may spend too much time on the dead.

So they sit down at the table together, their hands brushing as they reach for the ladle in the miso soup at the same time, and break out into laughter.

So they sit together on the couch, curled into each others forms because there's just not enough time, and they speak no more of death.

"How do you feel about children?" She asks him.

His fingers stop tracing patterns over her shoulder blades. "A daughter?" He asks. "One just like you?"

She giggles, the thought dancing across her mind. "Or a son." She counters. "A little boy just like _you._ "

* * *

When Kaito dies that cold spring day in April, Tsume does nothing but cry and hold his cooling hand like it held the last light in the universe. She's almost come to expect the deaths of people around her. _Death is common. Death is universal. Death will come for everyone._ But the morning sun rises, she stands, gathers her daughter, and throws herself into arranging his funeral instead.

 _He will not want me to keep crying forever. I was always his rock and he was mine. I must be my own guardian now._

So when her sister comes to call, Tsume pushes back her frustration, her resentment, and the years and years of buried grief and broken promises, and becomes unusually accepting. "Hello, Neesan."

Kosshi sits down at her kitchen table for the very first time since Tsume's moved into the house, and the feeling is so surreal it might as well be a painting on the wall. "I hear you're planning to bury him in the local cemetery, Imouto."

A flash of irritation swells beneath her breastbone. "Were you offering me another idea, Neesan? You hate him after all." Tsume is attempting to be accepting, but her basic nature is not to be changed. If Kosshi is here to insult her, then she wouldn't take it lying down.

Kosshi sighs. "I was offering your husband a place in the clan cemetery." _Did I hear her wrong?_

"He's not clan." And it hurts to say this. It really hurts, because she'd wanted so badly for him to be recognized when he was alive, but now it comes, too little, too late.

"I offered him a clan name at your official wedding." Kosshi folds her hands primly over her knee. "He died _Inuzuka Kaito_ not Iwa no Kaito. He ought to be buried in the clan cemetery. It is his right."

"Then thank you." Tsume says finally. "I'll accept your peace offering. I'll arrange for his burial in the clan cemetery." And oh, this is a dream of spring, but it comes with ashes and burned dreams. _He ought not to have died._

 _He hasn't met our second child. He ought not to have died._

Kosshi rises, grace in every movement, the motion causing the silver chain around her neck to slide forward. A single jasmine flower made of white gold and porcelain glimmers in the light. Kosshi tucks it back beneath her kimono shirt in a casual movement that is anything but casual. "Very well then, Imouto. I have nothing to add."

But Tsume's no energy to think about the necklace her sister never took off. There are more things to worry about. Hana hasn't said a single word since her howling sobs at Kaito's bedside, and that worries her. Her little girl, so mature in some ways is yet so fragile in others. _She has never known grief before this, and grief came for her early. Earlier than it came for me._

She watches her sister disappear out the doorway, her thin shoulders level and proud, her spine straighter than a steel rod and closes her eyes to let the burning tears fall. _I do not know how I am supposed to go on, Kai-baka, now that I have to look before I leap._

* * *

She'd spoken too soon. She'd said too many bitter words.

It comes back to haunt her in the dark, as she sits and digests the fact that her sister is _gone. Neesan is gone forever._ She thinks, and isn't that hysterical? Isn't it, when Neesan had always seemed more ancient and stronger than the mountains?

And it is Uchiha Fugaku of all people who comes to her with Neesan's-had Neesan always been that small, that frail?-body cradled tenderly in his arms. "Inuzuka-san."

"Call me Tsume." She retorts and nearly bursts out laughing. _What is happening? Has the world gone mad? I just told the infamous stone man to call me by my first name._

"Tsume-san." He doesn't seem like he knows what to say. _He'd loved Neesan like a sister didn't he? What does this feel like for him?_

"Thank you for bringing her back." There's not much else to say. Ashi's in the hospital, Neesan is gone, Gaku is nowhere to be found, and the clan is picking themselves out of the rubble and ready to begin again, but Tsume herself still feels crushed and bruised. And she does not know where her children are.

The fact that Neesan had died, when she was strong and capable does not fill her heart with confidence for Hana and Kiba's fate. _She's only five years old. Hana. Hana. Please don't tell me that someone will find your body out there too._

It's only after he lays down the body and leaves that she realizes what's wrong. It's not that Neesan is drenched with blood, not that she's gone _dead_ _. Neesan's necklace is gone._

And perhaps that is the most surreal part of this whole experience. Neesan never took off her necklace, and now it is gone.

Tsume picks her sister up and walks the long walk up to the main house.

And then she goes to find her children. _Please, I do not ask for much. Just that they are both alive. Have them both be alive, please. Okami-sama, I will never ask for anything so much as I ask for this again._

 _Please._

* * *

"Hana?" She scans the shelter, the third shelter she's checked in so far. "Hana?"

"Kaa-san!" Where is her daughter-ah. There. There she is. And Tsume's so relieved, so so relieved. _Thank Kami that no one else was taken from me._

And she could survive Sensei. She could survive Kaito. She could survive even Neesan.

She could not survive the loss of her children. She does not think she can. Not two more gravestones in the endless array. Not two small coffins. Not her children.

"Thank heavens you're safe." She brushes her hands through her daughter's hair. _No injuries. Okami-sama. Thank you._ She pulls back and then suddenly notices that her daughter is not alone. There are two other children with her, and Tsume feels a surge of pride. _Saving others besides you and yours, Little Nose?_

"Are their parents here yet?"

Hana shakes her head. "I don't think so."

 _Well...it's the little Uchiha and I assume another Uchiha._ She sets a hand on the kid's shoulder and shakes him as gently as she's capable of managing. He blinks awake, arms still wrapped around the baby in the sling-a little brother perhaps? "Where are they?"

She wakes the other one next. "Well, come along you two. I'll notify the Uchiha Clan where you are, but our house isn't flattened despite some damage and the Uchiha Compound is."

She turns and offers Fugaku's son a hand. The little Uchiha blinks and stares at her hand as though it is a foreign object. _Oh damn you, Fugaku. You can't possibly tell me that you've never taught your child how to hold hands. That's just sad._

Still as the saying goes, in for a penny, in for a pound. She takes all three of the little Uchihas home.

She still has a daughter. She still has a son. And as long as she doesn't have to bury her children, she'll survive. And that's all it takes for her to walk out into the sun.

* * *

"I do not pay attention to the world ending. It has ended for me, many times and began again in the morning." -Nayyirah Waheed, _Salt_

* * *

 **A.N.** Tsume deserved some serious consideration for her role as daughter, sister, wife, and mother. There are many things missing from this picture, and we don't see a lot of relationships develop as slowly as some of the other ones, but that's largely because this is a study of Tsume's lost people.

To note, the working title of this short was Inuzuka Tsume and Her Many Losses.

Thank you to LittleMissSugarLess, AnimeFreak7177(:P), rickrossed, EverBear01 (The Fugaku chapter regarding flowers is called Ikebana, and it's a WIP.), LadyScatty (I do like the Uchihas a lot.), libraryrockerr (Indeed, Chibi-tachi is really adorable.), MarchionessBlueVelvet (Yes, both Itachi and Sasuke share more similarities with their father than they think, at least in my head. Thus, the many different sorts of parallels.), worldtravellingfly (Thank you!), Kenshin135 (There is a lot of subtext to the Danzo situation that Kaito did not see, thus, we have Danzo behaving in an out of character fashion. Hopefully, the mystery becomes clearer later, but it will get murkier before that.), and Love Stories00 (Yep. That's why Kakashi has a couch now. Not that Hana's really aware of her role in his decision to get one.) for reviewing!

And for everyone who favorited and followed!

~Tavina.


	8. Plum Rain

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.** Warning: This is full of enough sugar to rot all of your teeth. (Also, timeline wise, Kiba has just headed out the door as Hana leaves the village for the Capital.)

* * *

"He, is nothing but trouble."

"Trouble, yes," She nodded.

"But not nothing. Not nothing."

-Atticus

* * *

The first time Ino meets Inuzuka Kiba, she's watering coral roses off to the side of her father's shop. The boy who barges in is a whirlwind of noise and color and movement. "Hey, Ossan!" He bursts through several rows of greenery straight towards Ino's Touchan. "What're Neechan's favorite flowers?"

Touchan turns to him with amused eyes. "Your Neechan is?"

The boy puffs out his cheeks maddeningly, and Ino has to admit, at least to herself, that his cheeks are really round, and the way that there's lightning sparking in his eyes is really rather cute. "My Neechan's Inuzuka Hana." He announces, as though the girl's a goddess. "She's the best Neechan in the entire world."

 _That might be a bit much though._ Ino thinks hesitantly to herself. _But he sounds so assured. Maybe he's right._ Ino didn't have a comparison after all. She is an only child.

"Hmm...I don't think that your Neechan has a favorite flower, Inuzuka-kun." Touchan leans back against the counter, and looks around at all the flowers.

The boy stamps his foot. "I'm _Kiba_ not Inuzuka-kun." A little white puppy pokes his head out from the collar of his baggy jacket, and barks. The boy tilts his head down. "Yeah, you're right, Akamaru." Kiba turns back to Touchan. "What flowers does she get for Fuga-tou?"

And that's just so clueless that Ino has to help him. "That's not what flowers are _for._ " She steps out from behind the coral roses.

He blinks at her stupidly. "What?"

She takes him by the hand. _How can he be so illiterate? Flowers are the most important things in the world._ "What are you trying to say?" She asks him.

He frowns. "Flowers say things?" He pulls his hand from Ino's grip. "I just wanna give flowers."

She sets her hands on her hips. "That's really dumb. You wouldn't want to offend people by giving them bad flowers right?" He still looks mutinous, so she gives him a reasonable example. "Cactus flowers mean lust, do you wanna say that you wanna kiss the person you're giving them to?"

He looks vaguely horrified and completely disgusted. "Eww. Who'd want to do _that?_ " His puppy barks, and he looks even more horrified by the moment. "Akamaru, that's gross."

Ino can't help it, she giggles, a hand over her mouth. _He looks so stupid like that._ Another, countering thought, pops up. _He really looks kind of cute._

"Since you don't want that, isn't it better to know what you want to say?" She takes him by the hand to show him the flowers. "What did you want the person to know?"

Kiba looks down at his feet, a vivid blush rising in his cheeks. He shuffles back and forth, but for some things, some people, Ino can be patient. "What him to know that he's 'preciated." He says at last. "Fuga-tou not Tou-san, but still _Tou."_

Ino tilts her head back, running down the list of flowers that she found appropriate for gift giving. "Rosemary for remembrance." She decides. "Daffodils for respect, and anemones for sincerity. You'll have sincere respect for him for always."

His eyes grow wide. "That's so brilliant."

She turns around to actually look at him. He's dancing about on sandaled feet, waving his white puppy in the air. They are both barking furiously at each other. And Ino's surrounded by happy people, but this boy _shines_ with happiness like a small star has descended down to the flower shop. "Brilliant." He repeats. "Will you show me what the flowers you mentioned are? The-the rose thing and the aneno-whatsits."

She laughs. "Rosemary and anemones and daffodils." She loops an arm through his, and leads him down the rows. 'See, these ones are anemones." She picks up a cluster of little white flowers and offers them to him.

He takes them very carefully, as though afraid of crushing them, with furious nodding. "Un. Un."

She wants to know where this goes now, so she leaves him in front of the rosemary and daffodils, so she can go back to Touchan. "Touchan? Can I go with him?"

Touchan's eyebrows draw together. "You sure you'll be alright out there, Cosmos?"

Ino slumps forwards. _I'm really really tired of Touchan not letting me outside._

"Hey Ossan!" Kiba's back with his hands cupped gently around his flowers. "'M sure that, that-" He flounders, turning back to her. "Hey, what's your name anyway?"

"Ino." She presses a hand to her mouth in a vain attempt to stifle her giggles. "My name's Ino." _You haven't even learned my name?_

"Yeah!" He rallies himself. "'M sure that Ino-chan'll be great if she came."

"What if she gets hurt?" Touchan pins him with an unimpressed look that's sent of plenty of potential friends running.

The boy before her doesn't even quail. He straightens his shoulders and bares his teeth. "She won't get hurt." He sounds so perfectly assured that she believes him. "I'll bet my life on it." His white puppy barks.

"Your life?" Touchan asks, his voice low.

Kiba crosses his arms over his chest, and frowns so hard that Ino feels it right down to the marrow of her bones. "I'm betting _my_ life not Akamaru's." His chin juts out. "I can afford that."

Touchan chuckles, and the tension bleeds out of the air. "There's no need to be so serious. I believe you'll be kind to my cosmos."

"Fuga-tou says that I shouldn't say anything I don't mean." Kiba pulls a series of bills and coins out of his pockets, and reaches up to set them on the counter. "Said was willing to bet my life." He grouses. "Meant it. Wasn't a metaphor."

* * *

He pulls her out the door by the hand, his flowers in a big bouquet on his arm, his dog stuffed down his shirt, and bends down to pick up a paint can, which rattles and clanks, with the other hand. He stands in the sun for a moment, the light catching his hair and setting each strand aflame, the tips bright gold, and the roots a deep earthy brown.

"So." Ino begins. "Who are you giving your flowers to?" He'd said Fuga-tou over and over again, but she didn't know who that _was._ And she'd thought that she knew every person who was important in Konoha.

"Fuga-tou." He replies, and then blinks. "I 'pose that you don't know who that is." He pauses and considers it as they walk down the street. "Uchiha Fugaku-san." He says at last. "That's what Neechan says his name is anyway. I just call him Fuga-tou."

"Uchiha Fugaku-san?" She squeaks. _The Military Police Force Captain? The Uchiha Clan Head?_

"Yeah." He smiles, and it's almost blinding. "Fuga-tou works down at the station. But don't worry." He says, mistaking her trepidation for disappointment. "He's at home for breakfast today. He said so."

"We're going to the Uchiha District?" She asks, and her legs quake. _But the Uchiha are...important..._ She's the daughter of a clan head. She knows that, but she's never found Touchan the least bit scary. Uchiha Fugaku, who only ever showed up at the flower shop in May, is a scary man. He'd glared and hned his way through an entire conversation with Touchan.

"Yup!" The boy besides her bounces. "And after we give Fuga-tou his flowers-and you got him some really nice ones-we can go play with my stupid Otouto." He pauses for a moment. "D'you like candy? Or hair clips or jewelry and things?"

"Um. I like plum candies." She offers.

He considers this very hard. "C'mon. We can take a detour to Baasan's candy store. " He steps off of the main street, and heads down an alleyway. Ino follows him, completely lost in the maze of streets. "I like lemon candy." He announces out of the blue. "But plum candy is nice too." He still has a hold of her hand, and his dog barks again. "Yeah, Akamaru agrees. If you liked strawberry candy we won't be able to be friends anymore."

"We're friends?" She hadn't many friends, but never have they declared so out of the blue like this. The thing is, she half suspects that he's serious.

He blinks at her. "Course we are. You helped me find some flowers, and I'm gonna go buy us candy for the trip to Stupid Sasuke's house."

And maybe friendship is really that simple.

* * *

By the time they pass the gates of the Uchiha District, Ino's learned more about Kiba than she ever thought she would. She's also laughed more than she has in the past week, because Inuzuka Kiba has such an infectious laugh-and he's always laughing-that it makes everyone else around him bright and happy as well.

"-And then we dropped a paint bomb on its back." He's let go of her hand to mime dropping bombs and giggles so hard he almost falls over. "And you should've heard how loud that dumb cat yowled." He laughs. "It ran around for twenty blocks, we had to dunk it back in the river to clean it up. Left paint prints everywhere!"

She can picture the disgruntled cat, and Kiba chasing it around town. The thought is so amusing that she has to stop and bend over laughing. Her new friend is a good story teller.

"Kiba-chan." An older woman smiles at them. "Did you eat breakfast yet?" They'd been crunching candy from a bag of hard candies that Ino has been holding, but no breakfast yet.

"Nope! Not yet, Reiya-baasan." He sketches a clumsy bow in the older woman's direction and Ino hurries to do the same. "But don't worry! I'm going to Fuga-tou's house. He promised that he'd be home today!"

Reiya-san pats him on the head fondly. "You really are such a bright ray of sunshine, Kiba-chan." She pinches his cheek and hands him a wrapped package. "Remember to share with your friends too, alright?"

He beams at her. "Course!" He nudges Ino forwards and then gestures as enthusiastically as if he's presenting a princess. "This is Ino-chan, she's my newest friend!"

"Oh, aren't you cute." Reiya-san leans down and pats Ino's head as well. "Yamanaka Inoichi's daughter?"

"Y-yes, Reiya-san." She bows forwards. "It's very nice to meet you!"

Kiba pulls her up. "Don't need to be so formal, Ino-chan! Reiya-baasan doesn't mind." And then they're hurrying down the street again, among all the Uchiwa on each of the houses, Kiba shouting greetings to practically every person that they passed.

"I'll paint your fence this afternoon, Kidan-jiisan!" "Save me a space at the game later, Haru-chan!" "We're going fishing next week, right Kagen-san?"

 _He knows so many people._ And they were all bright and happy, and smiling. She's never seen so many Uchiha smile before, but they're smiling for him, for this bright boy who laughs like plum rain.

* * *

"Miko-baa!" He calls as he steps out of his sandals and sets them by the door, gesturing for her to do the same. "We're here!"

The most beautiful woman Ino's ever seen steps out into the hallway, her face brightening as she lays eyes on Kiba. "Kiba-chan? Good morning!" She then turns to Ino. "And who's this?"

"This is Ino-chan!" Kiba announces. "She's my new friend!" He turns back to her. "And this is Miko-baa, she's Sasuke's Kaa-san."

"It's very nice to meet you!" Ino bows forwards, and prays that her hair looks alright. _This is the Uchiha Matriarch._ She reminds herself. _I can't be rude._ But in the back of her mind, she's not concerned about manners or etiquette. _I didn't know that Uchiha-san's wife was so pretty._

"Oh, there's no need for that." Miko-san helps her up. "Come have breakfast with us."

And then she's pulled into the kitchen with a laughing Kiba. There's a man at the head of the table already. "Fuga-tou!" Kiba bounces forwards with a hop and a skip holding the flowers before him like an offering. "I got you flowers!"

The man raises his head, dark eyes questioning, a hand rising to take the bouquet from Kiba's proffered hands. "And you are saying?"

"Uh..." Kiba rubs his neck with his free hand, and Ino can see the gears in his head turning furiously. "There's rosemaries and daffodils and anemo-whatsits." He plops into a chair besides the Uchiha Patriarch, who is still waiting for him to finish patiently. "They're supposed to mean...respect and stuff. Cause I mean it!" He slumps forwards. "Ino-chan said it lots better."

"Sincere long lasting respect." Fugaku-san rises to place the flowers in a vase. "Is that what you meant?"

"Yeah!" Kiba bounces in his seat. "Hey, Ino-chan! Come sit down!" He scoots over on his chair, and pulls her over so that they sit on the same seat. "This is Ino-chan." He announces to Fugaku-san. "She's the prettiest girl in the world."

Fugaku-san's eyebrow rises minutely. "Indeed."

Ino feels her entire face flush a dark purple. "Yamanaka Ino!" She squeaks and bows awkwardly from her seated place at his table. _Kiba-kun thinks I'm pretty?_ "Very pleased to meet you, Fugaku-san!"

"Oi!" And another boy their age has appeared in the kitchen. "Who's the girl, Kiba-nii?"

Kiba turns to stick his tongue out at the new boy, Akamaru barking furiously. "That's Kiba-niisama to you, Sasuke!" He shrugs. "And this is Ino-chan. She's our newest friend."

"I don't remember being consulted." Sasuke sits down on the other side of his father, a frown working its way onto his face. "Besides, why do we want to be friends with her anyway?"

And Ino decides right then and there, that she doesn't like Uchiha Sasuke very much. "Because I am so Kiba-kun's friend!" She jabs a finger in his direction. "And you can't do anything about it."

"Otouto..." Another boy's made his way to the dinner table. "Don't be mean to other people. It isn't kind." He bows to their father. "Otou-san."

"But Niichan!" Sasuke protests. "Kiba-nii made a friend and he didn't bring me with him!"

"People can do things without you, Sasuke." Another boy drops into the chair beside Sasuke. "Nice to meet you, Ino-chan." He winks at her. "I'm Shisui."

"And I'm Itachi." The first boy says from the seat besides Ino.

 _They're much nicer._ She decides, and smiles pleasantly at them. "It's nice to meet you."

"Why don't I get a nice to meet you?" Sasuke grouses, with a baleful glare in her direction.

"Cause you weren't nice to her." Kiba sends him a look that can best be translated as long suffering. "You dummy, course she wouldn't like you."

"Boys!" Miko-san sets a tray of breakfast dishes on the table. "Be nice to our guest." She beams at Ino. "There's no need to be shy here, Ino-chan."

* * *

After breakfast, Itachi and Shisui take leave of the house, and Miko-san has charity work that takes her out into the wider village.

It's just the stern man at the head of the table, the boy beside her, and the boy across from her left at the table. "So." Kiba begins. "I brought the paint can."

"Boys." Fugaku-san sets his hands on the table. "Find something else to do. The cats deserve a rest."

"Yes, Otou-san." Sasuke looks bitterly disappointed, and sends Ino another look. _It's all your fault._ His eyes seem to say.

"Well." Kiba pushes himself up from the table. "Let's go to the park!"

The three of them gather themselves together, and prepare to trudge out. Ino hangs behind the other two, waiting for a moment to thank Fugaku-san.

"Thank you." She whispers, and bows in his direction. He hadn't said much, hadn't been welcoming, but it had been his house, and she'd eaten breakfast at his table. He deserves her thanks.

"Think nothing of it, Yamanaka-chan." He sweeps past her, on his way out the door. "Hurry." His last words are dropped pieces of paper in his wake. "Or you will lose them."

She jerks upright, and sees Sasuke turning a corner down the street, and Kiba not far behind, Akamaru running after them. "Hey!" She shouts. "Wait up!"

* * *

By mid morning, they've built the biggest sandcastle she's ever seen in the sand pit that they've claimed, complete with eight turrets and four moats and a wall. "You're not bad at this." Sasuke says as if he's surprised.

She sticks her tongue out at him. "Well, it serves you right, duck butt."

Kiba snorts, and flops back, laughter choking from his throat in short bursts. "Oh, that's a good one, No-chan!" He wipes a tear from his eye with the back of his hand. "Wah, duck butt."

Sasuke pounces on him. "What did you say?"

Kiba growls. "I said duck butt. That's what I said."

They roll straight through the sandcastle, and sand sprays everywhere. _All that hard work._ Ino laments as she dives out of the way. _Wasted._

"Kiba-kun! Sasuke-kun!" She pulls Kiba off of Sasuke with a rather lot of difficulty. "We shouldn't do this here." She whispers.

There are mothers pulling their children away from them.

"Oh eww." A girl from close to them turns up her nose. "What's a girl like you doing with _them_?" And she doesn't like Sasuke very much, but she _likes_ Kiba. _He's funny and kind and friendly. What's wrong with him?_

Kiba sits up, his hands clenched in fists. "Oi!" And she knows that he's just about ready to charge in.

"Don't say anything bad about my friends!" Ino flings a handful of sand at the offending girl. "You take that back!"

The girl steps back. "I was going to offer for you to join us." She glares down her nose at Ino, her arms crossed over her chest. "But I guess you're just as uncouth as _those two_. Ugly." The girl sneers, and Ino wobbles, and sits down hard. _I'm ugly?_

Sasuke steps between them, his hands shaking. "You take that back."

Kiba steps right up next to him. "Yeah! You take that back! No-chan's much prettier than you!"

The other girl takes a look at the two of them, both of them furious and sand covered, and flounces off. "Ugh. Who cares about you three?"

Sasuke turns around. "You didn't believe her right?"

"Yeah, yeah!" Kiba offers her a hand. "You're the prettiest girl in the world!" _I only met you today. But you're nicer than Shikamaru, and more dependable than Chouji._

She takes his hand, rubs the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, like she's seen him do, and smiles. "Course I didn't believe her."

Sasuke scoffs, his hands in his pockets. "Yeah, you shouldn't." He looks kinder now. "You're pretty cool."

* * *

The three of them race down the street, Kiba and Akamaru leading the way. "C'mon! There's a yakitori place this way!"

"Slow down!" Sasuke calls after him, dropping back to a walk beside Ino. "He's always in a hurry." He mutters.

Ino laughs, wild and free and doesn't bother to cover her mouth. "That seems like him."

Sasuke nods, and holds the flap open for her, when they get to the yakitori place. "We're here with my brother. The boy with the dog who got here earlier." He clarifies for the greeter.

"Right this way." The young man leads them to a booth in the back, where Kiba's bouncing up and down.

"Where were you two? I'm starving." Kiba pats the place beside him. "Come sit here, No-chan!" He turns to Sasuke with a suspicious look in his eyes. "You stopped your jogging practice again, didn't you?"

"I don't have any idea what you mean." Sasuke shrugs. "It's not important anyway."

"Stupid!" Kiba thwaps the table. "Neechan said that jogging's an important part of becoming strong! And we can only protect people when we're strong."

"I'll run tomorrow." Sasuke concedes. "And Ino-chan can come with us."

Yakitori appears before them, and Ino nibbles on a skewer while Kiba and Sasuke hold an eating contest. "I'll eat you under the table!" Kiba announces.

Sasuke grins at him, sharp and glinting in the bright light of their booth. "I'd like to see you try."

Kiba wins in the end by half a skewer. "Hah! Take that!" He points at Sasuke, cackling. "I won again! That's a full week now!"

Sasuke glares up at him. "I'll win tomorrow!" He declares. "Just you wait."

* * *

The three of them wander down to the lake in the early afternoon. "It's too hot to keep running around." Sasuke had groused, and Kiba had conceded that sweat is pretty awful.

"We could go down to the river?" Ino offers. "It'll be cooler there."

Sasuke seems to make up his mind. "We should go to the lake instead." He bumps shoulders with Kiba and Ino. "Shisui-nii made a boat earlier this summer. We can go boating on the lake."

"Yeah, that's a good idea." Kiba slings a sweaty arm around both their shoulders that Ino doesn't even mind, and the three of them troop off.

The lake is shiny and very blue, and it looks so cool that Ino forgets that she doesn't like still water, and still hasn't learned how to swim.

They step into the boat docked at the end of the pier, Sasuke surefooted as a goat, Kiba too careless to care, and Ino wobbling precariously.

Sasuke rows them towards the center, and Ino feels her tension mount. "C-can we go back?" She asks, but Kiba leans forwards, and jabs Sasuke in the stomach.

Sasuke jerks back, and the boat tips precariously.

"Please!" She asks, louder this time. "Can we go back?"

The two of them stop their joking around. "What's wrong, No-chan?" Kiba's looking at her with worried eyes. "You're shaking."

"I can't swim." She admits. _They're going to think that you're stupid._ "And I'm afraid of water."

"We'll teach you later." Sasuke decides. "Swimming isn't hard." He does turn the boat around, and starts rowing back. "But since we don't want you to drown." The oars rise out of the water, and push back down. "We can go back."

She breathes a deep sigh of relief when they make it back to dry land.

They spend another four hours lounging about on the pier and the shallows, splashing and outlining prank ideas in the sand.

* * *

They walk back through the market, and Kiba dives towards a stall without any warning, dragging the two of them with him. "Hey, Baasan!" He points towards two hairpins. "How much are those?"

The two pins that he's pointing to are silver butterflies, so pretty that Ino doesn't even know what to say.

The woman behind the stall names a price, and Kiba muses over it for a moment, his mouth set in an uncharacteristic thin line. He seems to be wrestling with some sort of decision. "I'll take them." He says at last. "And don't wrap them."

He digs into his pockets, pulls out a chewy dog bone wallet, and reluctantly counts out the bills. Then he picks up the hairpins very carefully and turns to her. "Turn around." He mumbles. "We need to stick them in your hair."

She isn't sure that he's really good at hairstyles, but she turns around. _They're so pretty._ She thinks. _I have to get him a present just as good. He's so been nice all day._

He passes the hairpins to Sasuke. "Hold them for a moment." And then with a sigh of deep contemplation, gathers her tangled hair and twists it up rather messily. He's not very good, but it works anyhow. _He has a Neechan._ Ino reminds herself. _He probably practiced with her._

And then he sticks the two prettiest pins that Ino has ever seen in her hair. "There." He says, with finality. "Now No-chan's really a butterfly."

She blushes. Sasuke scoffs. Akamaru barks sharply once as if in agreement, and Kiba pulls them both onward. "And I 'pose that No-chan has to go home."

Sasuke peels himself away. "Niichan!" He shouts and waves. "Sorry, Kiba-nii!" He tosses over his shoulder, racing through the crowd towards Itachi-san. "I've gotta go home with Niichan!"

Kiba takes her hand, now that they're alone. "Well, we should probably go back."

"Yeah." Ino agrees, heart bursting. Every movement of her head sets the butterflies jangling. _I met the nicest boy today._ She smiles, and feels that her face must split in half.

* * *

"We're back!" Kiba opens the door for her, and she dances through the door.

"Touchan!" _I've got so much to talk to you about!_ She spins two circles across the floor and Touchan sweeps her up in a tight hug.

"Ino!" He doesn't sound very happy. "You've been gone the entire day."

"Touchan!" She giggles. "I've got so much to tell you about." She gestures wildly with her hands. "Kiba-kun and Sasuke-kun had a Yakitori eating contest. We built the biggest sand castle, and oh! We spent so much time down at the lake too! And, and-"

Touchan lays a finger over her lips. "It looks like we have to thank your new friend." He observes, looking up at Kiba and Akamaru, still shifting awkwardly from foot to foot by the door.

"Not a problem, Ossan!" He laughs, and rubs the back of his neck with a hand. "I gotta go to dinner, yeah? I'll be back tomorrow, No-chan!" He says, and then flees through the door.

Ino turns back to her Tou-chan. "Do you think I'm the prettiest girl?" She asks, and gestures to her hairpins. "I think I'm prettier now."

Touchan stares at her for a long time. "Of course you are, my cosmos." They turn to walk hand in hand back to dinner. "You'll always be my prettiest girl, with or without your new hairpins."

* * *

"It was this, him, and times like these

that she lived for and willing to die for

time and time again."

-JmStorm

* * *

 **A.N.** So I got hit by a case of the feels, which means we have a short on the Kiba, Ino, Sasuke friendship now. This was, while planning occurred, practically always a thing that was meant to be.

Thank you so much to LittleMissSugarLess, Yuki Suou (Yeah, Tsume has some clouded vision when it comes to those scenes, but she does recognize that somewhere along the line, she's also failed.), hasan9206, AnimeFreak71777, Cannibalistic Apple, Cooked Ghost (It's all fluff this time! There's nothing to cry about!), libraryrockerr, DuxTell (I'm glad that they're inspiring!), Guest, fernandfeather, and Shion Lee (I will write more Kakashi. He likes to appear in random places.) for reviewing!

And for everyone who favorited and followed.

~Tavina.


	9. Falling Into The Black

**I do not own Naruto.** Also, 'falling into the black' is a phrase from Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine describing Nara training accidents.

* * *

"The Devil asked me how I knew my way around the halls of hell. I told him I did not need a map for the darkness I knew so well."

-t.m.t.

* * *

"I hate war." Chobee's voice sounds over the radio headpiece in Nara Ensui's ear. They are crouching in the tall grass on the Kusa side of the Kusa-Iwa border, waiting for Kiho to return from recon. _If I had to guess, it's because potato chips make too much noise and he's not used to not eating for this long._

"Don't we all?" Kaito murmurs, and Ensui can almost _see_ the sarcastically arched blond eyebrow.

Kiho giggles. "Let's just remember our focus." She's in the body of her favorite swallow summons, looking over the land below, speaking directly to his mind. No one else can hear her.

"Yeah." Ensui breaths, and closes his eyes. _We're facing the Explosion Corps, and they've been brutal since the start of the war._ "We need to take out that squad on the other side of the border. That's our mission."

"You got a plan, En-kun?" Chobee shifts, and a slight wind blows through the grass, masking his movement.

"Where are they, Vicious Hag?" He asks for the benefit of the rest of his team.

"Making camp just over the border." Her mind's back in the body beside him. She switches into civilian clothes, and rubs mud and grime over her face, arms, and hands. Her legs are mud-splattered; her dress is hemp. "I'm going to flee across the border. They'll capture me, and I'll poison their water supply while I'm in their camp. Don't lose your nerve, Waste of Space."

"Ensui." Kaito's voice cracks over the radio. "You ought to veto that decision. It's a really bad idea."

"I second that." Chobee mutters. "Kiho-chan, that's an awful idea."

"Does anyone else have a better plan?" Kiho frowns and Ensui feels a headache coming on. _Oh Kami. They've just poked the sleeping bear._ "There are only the four of us. There's nine of them."

Ensui sighs. His headache comes back in full force. "I've got nothing guys."

"See?" Kiho asks their gathered team. "My idea is the best one so far." _It's the only one we've got so far, Vicious Hag._

"It's not a good idea." And his head is pounding, and he feels kind of sick. _Really shouldn't've been trying to stretch my shadow yesterday. It's killing me now._ "But I've got nothing else." He has to trust his team. _If I can't trust them, then I can't trust anyone._ "Kiho can go in, and we'll come in by sunset as backup." Sunset is his strongest time of day, where the shadows lengthen to their longest, and of course, he's worried as hell about this decision, but kami. _Why isn't Shikaku here to make a plan? I'm no good at long term plans._

"I've got it." She runs her fingers through his high tail, and kisses him on the cheek. "Good luck with the wait, boys." She disappears into the tall grass.

 _And there she goes, by the grace of Kami, my heart._ But he has to trust that he'll see her again, through the pounded clenching of his heart, through the dull roar in his ears. _And I'll see you again, in three hours time. That's a vow, Vicious Hag. Wait for us._

* * *

They are still crowded in the grasses as the sun slides to a hair's breadth above the horizon. The camp across the river has been eerily silent all afternoon. "Let's move in." He murmurs. "This has gone on long enough."

They rise from the grasslands, three shadowy men. He sends up a quick prayer, and pulls his battle face back on. _Let's roll._

Then, as one, they rush the camp on the other side of the river.

And that's when everything goes straight to hell.

* * *

Kiho's crouched over the water supply. Four guards raise the alarm as they move in. Five men gathered around the cooking fire pull out their weapons, as if they've been waiting for the call. And eight other agents burst from the ground.

 _An ambush. Shit._ He makes one hand sign, splits his shadow into four parts, and catches four of the ambushers in his long shadow.

"Partial Multisize Jutsu!" Chobee shrieks, and punches another three with his enlarged fist. He disappears into a brawl of moving limbs and muffled groans.

And then Kaito's going in, long knives slashing each frozen man over the throat, working with Ensui like they were born to do it, ducking under the incoming hail of kunai.

Kiho spins, shuriken flashing through the air. _But she hasn't got enough weapons._

"Ensui! Behind you!" He sees Kaito's shocked expression, and ducks, rolling forward as he loses his grip on the rat sign.

The air behind him explodes, setting his ears ringing. _Shit._ He thinks. _That would've been my head._

Kaito slashes his knife towards their attacker, lightning crackling at his fingertips. Ensui slams his shaking hands together for another sign.

The man grabs the knife and tears it from Kaito's hand. Another three men mob them.

His hands are still shaking too hard. The chakra's not coming.

Kaito's still moving, his hand catches their attacker across the face-

Bone, flesh, and brain matter rains down over the two of them as a deafening sound shakes the earth beneath their feet. _The Hell?_

There's no time to think though. He pulls himself together. Kaito's hand lands against another face, another shower blood. _We must look like something that's crawled out of the depths of Hell by now._ The two remaining men finally freeze, his shadow finally listening to his commands once more.

"Kaito" He gasps. "Finish them." _Are you alright? What the hell is going on?_ He doesn't have the breath or the energy to vocalize his concerns.

His friend does as asked, with the single knife still left in his hand. Two slashed throats. All goes still.

And then Kaito's falling to his knees, bloody hands raking through his hair, red streaking pale blond, madness in his eyes. "No. No. NO!" _We can't stop like this._

A dark shape rises behind Kaito, who's still so far gone.

And Ensui cannot possibly make it across the clearing in time. He sees the glint of a kunai in the dying light. His hands are in the Rat sign. His shadow's stretching. Stretching. The light is dying. Thread thin now, and it's not far enough.

He calls the last vestiges of his chakra and _pushes-_

And it _snaps,_ spinning lazily across the clearing, lifting into the air, spearing the woman through the throat. _What the actual-_

Blood sprays, raining over Kaito as the woman drops. His friends vacant eyes remain as they are. Ensui's not even certain that Kaito knows anything is going on at all.

But he doesn't have a shadow anymore. It's literally ten feet away from him.

He climbs to his feet, every muscle screaming.

"Ensui?" The voices come from very far away as he staggers towards Kaito. "Ensui?" Another step. "Ensui!" Hands on his shoulders, gently shaking him back and forth. _Chobee._ Dear old dependable Chobee, with blood and mud splattered in his hair, looking winded, but alright.

"Kiho?" Ensui rasps. "Where's Kibo?"

Kaito's shuddering before them, Chobee's cloak over him, and Chobee's here, mostly unharmed, but he can't see Kiho. She'd disappeared in the fray earlier. He hasn't seen her since.

"She's..." Chobee pauses just a moment too long. "She's fine!"

A wide fake smile. _Don't worry about it, Ensui._ He thinks disgust filling his mouth. _I'm not an invalid. So tell me what's going on._

"Where's _Kiho._ " He snarls as he falls to his knees before Kaito.

Chobee heaves him up. "She's healing herself right now." _So that's what this is._ Ensui thinks, and reaches out to help Kaito up.

"No!" The blond man shrieks, all vacant blue eyes, terror, slack muscles, and harsh breathing. "Don't touch me." A hand lashes out.

Ensui throws himself over Chobee. "Out of the way!" There's lightning sparking across Kaito's hands. _We'll all be killed if we touch that._ It passes over his high tail, and he smells his hair burning, but it doesn't touch Chobee.

"Waste of Space?" He sees Kiho crawling over the them on her hand and knees, her other hand glowing green and pressed over her abdomen. "What's going on? She's too close to Kaito. _He's unstable._

"Don't move." Ensui croaks. The fact that his shadow is lost means much less now. It rises over Kiho.

"Nara Ensui." It says. The situation is unreal. His shadow _bows_ to them. "My benefactor." Ensui coughs and tastes blood. _What is this?_

"Would you get back here?" Since it is so terrifyingly unreal, he might as well demand and be angry.

"I live to please." The Shadow ripples over the ground _through_ Kaito- _what did you think? That your shadow was a solid like a person?_ \- and comes to a stop before him. The situation is terrible, but they could all be dead. He'd take it. "I could help you." The Shadow says, and it's a terrible idea to want to say yes, a Nara knows all the warning signs, all the horror stories. _I've broken the clan jutsu._

"What are you talking about?" He can't help it. He has to ask. Call it natural curiosity.

"Don't, Ensui." Kiho's pushing herself up with both hands; he sees the fresh blood mixing with mud over her slashed dress, and he can't listen to her.

"Your friends are injured." The Shadow observes. And isn't it strange, isn't it _odd_ that a shadow can speak.

"Ensui." And that's Chobee. "You don't have to do this for us." Before them, Kaito shudders, a string of intelligible words, staring at his bloodied hands. He runs them through his pale hair and laughs. _Kaito's gone mad._

"Can you help with that?" Ensui jerks his chin in Kaito's direction. Kiho's got a glowing green hand over her stomach and she's not dead or insane yet so he'd take it, and Chobee very obviously seems fine.

"Of course, I can." The Shadow sounds offended. _If I'm making a deal with the Devil, I might as well as for what I need._

"I want whatever's breaking his mind muted or gone." He grits out, the taste of his own blood on his tongue getting worse. _I don't know what part of today broke him-I'm assuming it's the heads exploding part-so I'm going to ask for everything._

The Shadow wiggles as if it had shrugged its shoulders. "As my master commands." It wiggles over towards Kaito's shadow, and pulls a piece of it off, holds the piece in its hand for a moment, and then swallows it.

The wave of pain has him hacking up blood. It feels like he's being torn apart, stretched and reshaped, like his chakra network is trying to rip its way out of his skin, like he's a piece of canvas stretched over a bumpy rock filled landscape. A convulsive scream rises into the shattered air. He does not realize that it is his throat doing the screaming.

* * *

Nara Ensui finds himself again in a flower garden, roses of every color blooming and budding in a profusion of scent and taste. _My mind palace._ The thought is quickly followed by another. _Why am I here?_

He turns to the throne in the center of the garden. Normally, normally his avatar when he visited, would begin sitting on the throne, or if he chose to begin in some other part of the garden, the throne would be empty. His negative image is sitting there now.

"Who are you?" He demands, though he suspects that he knows. _Negative inverse. That's what a shadow is._

"I'm you." It replies. "Every dark part of you."

"So I made a deal with the Devil then." He looks around at all the frail blooming flowers, and then at the dark and seething shape on his throne wearing his form.

"Only if you are a devil, Nara Ensui. Do you consider yourself a devil?" It asks. _How am I supposed to answer that?_ He thinks to himself, halfway hysterical. _What about me is any different than any one of my cousins?_

"Ah." The Shadow breaths deeply and it seems smugly content. "You among all your peers, you're vindictive, Nara Ensui."

"So's Sembei." He snaps back. _If we are halves of each other, I refuse to be the lesser half._

"Who," The Shadow continues on undeterred. "Seeks knowledge as relentlessly as you do?" _Plenty"_ He thinks. _But not-_

"Yes." The Shadow agrees. "But not among the Nara, ancient gate keepers of the night. _You_ don't even pretend to be lazy." It examines its cuticles. "It's a critical failing of yours, you know."

"What do you _want?_ " He shouts at it. "Is it so wrong to want to save people?"

"Oh, Ensui." It murmurs, patronizingly. "I want to go back to sleep. But I can't do that now, can I? You've set me _free_."

 _That doesn't sound good._

"No, it really isn't." The Shadow uncrosses its legs and stands up. "We've split in two."

"You're telling me?" Ensui feels a laugh bubble up from the depths of him.

"If you hadn't stretched so far we won't be in this state. If you hadn't wanted to know so Kami-damned much what would happen then-" The Shadow pulls its smoky form together, and he sees his own dark eyes reflected back in its face. "We'll have to learn to get along now." A small cloud of smoke escapes the main body, and a branch like hand snakes out impossibly far and snatches it back.

The Shadow opens its mouth- _too wide. That's not even remotely human-_ and swallows it whole.

"What's that?"

The Shadow looks guilty, if a black shape could look guilty. "Your friend's negative energy. He shouldn't be crazy anymore."

 _Kaito._ He thinks, and sighs with relief. "So what's the problem?" Because that doesn't seem like something to be guilty about.

"Well..." The Shadow shifts backwards. "We-"

"Ensui!" And he feels strong arms wrap around his middle. "Thank Kami. You're still here."

"What?" He drawls, despite the unease moving somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach. "Vicious Hag, don't tell me that you're worried about me." _This is an uncharacteristic-_

"Worried?" There's a hysterical note to her voice. "Your heart stopped five times on our way back to the main camp. You're lucky the medics were able to revive you!" _That sounds..._ He doesn't want to contemplate it.

"How long have we been down here?" He asks his shadow.

It cowers like a beaten dog. "Two days. Give or take."

"Do we have any _other_ problems?" _Dark half of me indeed. I wouldn't have waited to tell myself that we've been down here for two whole days. Give or take._ He ignores that this is exactly what he's done.

"We've burned our chakra system?" It offers.

"You mean." Kiho's voice has gotten dangerously low. " _You_ burned Ensui's chakra system." She advances on it, spiritual energy glowing blue-white.

It shies away from her avatar like any smart sentient being. _It might be a part of me after all._ Ensui muses. _We're afraid of the same things._

"I'm sorry?" It offers and draws itself up. "I love you? Don't kill me?"

The words knock the air from his lungs. _Did you just-_ He stands, slack jawed, and petrified. The first time Kiho was ever supposed to know that-he can't even think it properly. He won't ever be able to think properly again. _She wasn't supposed to know that yet._

" _You_ love me?" She sets a hand on her hip, sarcastic anger in every line of her frame. "Whatever makes you think that I care about a good for nothing piece of trash like you?" And she's said this before, calls him a 'waste of space' as an endearment quite often, and loudly at that, but this is not the same.

His shadow slumps. "We were afraid that you were going to say that."

"No. You were afraid that she was going to say that." Ensui steps forward and wraps his arm around his teammate's waist. "Come on, we should go back."

She looks up at him, impossibly, exasperatedly fondy. "And you!" There's something like a tidal pool in her teal eyes, furious but worried. "Don't you think that I'm done with you!"

"Yeah, yeah." He drawls, and sticks his hands in his pockets. "Lemee write that down so I don't forget it, yeah, Vicious Hag?"

"Ooo..." She scrunches up her nose the way she always does when she's frustrated and shakes a finger at him. "I'll never get over how much I hate you, you waste of space!" You're even worse than a trash can."

"Vicious." He sighs. "And ugly." He adds, pulling on a stray lock of her hair.

"Vindictive." She lobbies back, turning up her nose. They walk out into the light, her giggles trailing behind them.

* * *

Ensui comes back to himself in pieces, a finger here, breathing there. And when he finally cracks open his eyes, he thanks every deity there ever was that he's still alive. He's burning up inside, but he's most certainly alive, because hell doesn't feel this bad.

Chobee's in the hospital bed opposite his, munching on some food source or other, and the sound is constant and soothing.

There's a head of pale blond hair pillowed on his bedside table and for one moment he thinks that it's Kiho, but she's pushing open the door which has to mean- _This is Kaito.-_ He realizes, somewhat belatedly. _Kai-kun._

"Oh good." Kiho murmurs. "You're awake."

Her statement jolts their mutual friend from his slumber. "Wah?" Iwa no- _Inuzuka Kaito now-_ He reminds himself, is the most ungraceful bed head that Ensui has ever had the dubious pleasure of meeting.

Kaito's gaze lands on his face. "Oh Kami." He smiles, soft and small. It looks normal. _Oh praise Kami that I lived to see it._ "You survived!" The blond man runs his hands through his hair, eerily reminiscent of the time he went insane, but he doesn't seem to notice. "Do you know how worried we were?" _Yes. Be alive and sane enough to lecture me about my bad choices. Be the den mother._ "One moment we were finishing the fight, and the next you were on the ground screaming and just-" Kaito turns to him, bereaved worry in those blue gray eyes. "Shit. I never want to see that again. Please don't ever do that again."

And the most surreal thing about the week is that mild mannered Kaito just swore.

"Yeah." Ensui's lips curl up in a smile despite how his veins still feel like they're being held to a molten flame. "I'll try not to."

* * *

"Damaged people are dangerous. They know how to make hell feel like home."

-Quotes n' Notes

* * *

 **A.N.** And so here we have it, Nara-sensei's beginning explorations into the thing that's plaguing him now in Bloodless. That and some team love. More before and after this time period will be covered, but I felt that this scene was too long to include in Teahouse off the Main Road as it is three thousand or so words, so here it is.

The response to last chapter was tremendous. Thank you so much to rickrossed (Naruto will not be lefty out.), AnimeFreak71777 (:P), Sazaleli, LittleMissSugarLess (They will. Eventually.), OddShadow, samusbot, lanternenfisch, mercurae, CasJeanne (This takes place concurrent of the Kakunodate Arc, so Hana's not in the village for her to meet Ino again.), DuxTell, NightsBlackRose13 (I feel like it's the other way around. Kiba's rubbed off on Hana. Kiba is brighter and much more spontaneous than Hana even though they are siblings, and thus share a degree of similarity.), UnbiasedBias (Well, he is five years old, and probably sweeter than him at twelve.), libraryrockerr, Real Exter (I feel that Ino, being herself at five, is simply more vain. Shikamaru and Choji are best friends with each other, and they do a lot of boring things like eat and watch clouds, in her opinion. She hasn't grown up enough to appreciate them yet, or understand less showy personalities, and whatever else Kiba is, he's very much showy. She's a little in awe, but she won't forget her older friends.), Cooked Ghost (Surviving Fuga-tou...not many. And yes, Inoichi is worried because Hana has reminded him, and unfortunately Kiba is her little brother. He's a little guilty.), Guest, and helenGet for reviewing!

And everyone who favorited and followed! We've passed a hundred followers for Ashen!

~Tavina


	10. The Noonday Sun

**I do not own Naruto.** And this is the Deidara one shot, dedicated to Sis, for the four hundredth review of Ashen. (Thanks for making sure that I always keep on writing.) I hope you like it!

* * *

"If you want to shine like the sun, first burn like a sun."

-A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

* * *

A string of fireworks goes up outside the house. He's happy because the crackling pop sounds like meat sizzling over hot stone that Tou makes when things are good.

"Now, Dei-kun." Tou's hand lands in his hair. "Watch carefully, un." He picks up the end of the string, and with a twist of energy, tosses it into the air. "Katsu."

Another string of fireworks goes up in a cloud of sparks and sounds. "This is our heritage, un." Tou whispers carefully as he leans down to pick up the third string of fireworks, pale blond hair plastered to his face in the noonday sun. "Now, you try."

Deidara takes the string with both hands, and tries to remember how the energy felt. It'd been hot and warm. Bubbly? He tries to find it in himself.

"What are the two of you doing?" Kaa appears in the doorway, her hands on her hips. "Anata! Are you giving our three year old fireworks?" She flips her long golden hair over her shoulder and drags Tou towards the house by the ear. "Dei-chan, come inside for lunch." She calls over her shoulder.

Deidara finds the bright bubbly energy inside of him, and with a twist, he tosses the string into the air.

It sparks, and he leans back. "Katsu." Deidara whispers. And the crackling red blossoms in the air so vibrant it looks like blood.

"Iwa no Deidara!" Kaa's standing in the doorway again. "If you do that again, we won't be making pots after dinner." Kaa is a potter, and sometimes she would let him help.

"I'm coming, Kaa, un." He hops back from the still crackling fireworks and trips over his own feet. "Oww."

And Kaa's there to help him up, set him back on his feet, and lead him inside. "Oh, Dei-chan." She sighs, a fond smile on her lips. "Always so clumsy."

* * *

The year he turns four, Tou goes away and doesn't come back. Four shinobi in flak jackets come to the house, sitting about in the front room, talking with low voices to Kaa.

She cries over the dishes when they leave.

"Kaa, un?" He tugs at her pant leg. "What's the matter?"

She wipes her eyes, and does her best to smile bright, though it's a bit cracked around the edges. "There's nothing the matter, Dei-chan." She leans down to hug him, and she smells like flowers and sunshine. "Be brave, alright?"

He nods. "Un!" _Tou always thinks I'm brave. Kaa should think so too._

* * *

Kaa puts on her flak jacket in front of the mirror, and kisses him goodbye. "I'll be back soon, Dei-chan."

It is the last he sees of Kaa.

It takes him a week to move into Kaa and Tou's room. He builds a fort of their sheets and blankets, and it takes only a day or so for the room to stop smelling of flowers and sunshine.

It had never smelled of Tou at all.

He stares at the photographs on their dresser. Kaa. Tou. Himself. And a picture of two little boys who both looked like Tou. He had too much of Kaa's sun yellow in his own hair, but Tou's hair is paler, and both the boys in the picture have pale hair.

He tries not to think about it too much.

An old man comes for him as he sits alone in the house, holding onto a string of fireworks. "Iwa no Deidara?"

He rubs his eyes with a scruffy sleeve. "Un." His name is Iwa no Deidara. Kaa had-had said it when she was upset with him.

The old man looks at him for a long moment. "You're coming with me."

"Where're Kaa and Tou?" He has to ask. They said they would be back. They would want to know where he is. He can't go away with this strange old man.

"They're dead." The old man replies. "I'm your teacher now." He looks about the room, and it seems that something about this causes him discomfort. "Pack your things."

The word echoes about in his head. _Dead._

 _Never to be seen again. Kaa and Tou are gone._ He sways slightly as he climbs to his feet. He tugs the string of fireworks behind him rather mechanically, and begins packing his clothes, which have all migrated to the floor of Kaa and Tou's-

He takes the photographs as well. All of them.

* * *

"Where're we going, un?" He musters up the courage to ask. They've gone deeper into the village than he's ever been before, and his legs are so tired, and he must be slow.

"The tower."

"Who're you?" They pass houses, and more houses, and then shops.

"The Tsuchikage." Deidara blinks. _The Tsuchikage?_ "You may call me Jiji."

"Okay, un." Kaa and Tou had mentioned the Tsuchikage at times, in tones that made it seem like he was important, but the old man before him doesn't look all that important. Still he supposes that it does not matter.

He's shown a bare room in the tower with no more than a chair, a desk, and a bed.

It's only after he sets out the photographs on the desk, and pushes all of his clothes in the new closet that he begins to cry, shoulders shaking, messy and unrefined.

 _Kaa...Tou..._

* * *

"Deidara, you have no time to play." His shishou tells him when he is five, when the sun's rising over their rocky homeland. "You are a shinobi and my only student. That is why you must study hard."

And he nods. "Yes Jiji, un." But somewhere out there, the hot dry wind and the muddy creek bed calls to him. The white clay urges him to pull more shapes from its flat forms than merely shattered explosions, but to give in would be playing, and Jiji has already said that he has no time to play.

It is a shame though. There is so much beauty to be coaxed from the clay, from the rocks, from the earth itself. His hands itch to shape and mold and pull shapes from the putty that he's to practice with.

He tries very hard not to play though.

Sometimes, it works.

Most of the time, it doesn't.

* * *

He believes that he has resolved the conflict between play and work one summer afternoon. He'd sculpted a spider, and it did everything that fireworks and clay pellets were supposed to do.

It is with this thought in mind that he barrels into Jiji's office. "Hey, Old Man! I did it, un!"

"Iwa no Deidara." It's Jiji's son. Deidara believes, in his heart of hearts, that Kitsuchi-san _does not like_ him, although he can't think of why. "You know that Tsuchikage-sama has no time for you right now."

 _But I got it to work properly this time!_ "You don't have to be so mean about it, un." There's no use in complaining loudly though, he's just an investment, just a little boy who can make explosions, not the Tsuchikage's flesh and blood son.

"That's it." Jiji snaps his fingers. "Deidara, go stand next to that girl over there." He's pointing to a...girl with a Konoha headband.

"Why'd I have to go and stand next to a leafy ninja, un?" He goes though, he might complain, might be able to complain, but it's still necessary to go, even though he hates to be compared to a tree hugger.

"You two have identical looking noses." Deidara examines the girl. _Huh. Un. She does have my nose._ Jiji comes to a stop before them. "Why is that?" _I wanna know that too, un! Why does she have Tou's nose?_

"A lot of people have noses that looks similar, Tsuchikage-san." She does not call Jiji Tsuchikage-sama. She calls him Tsuchikage- _san_ and doesn't look particularly impressed by it.

"Not everyone has noses that look exactly identical." Jiji crosses his arms and glares heavily at her.

She gestures to her cheeks, towards those prominent red triangles that he'd noticed before even thinking about her nose _._ "I am an Inuzuka, Tsuchikage-san. A shinobi of Konohagakure no Sato and proud. Not one of us has ever belonged to Iwa." _She sounds so weirdly proud of that._ Although, he supposes, if he were to grow up with tree hugging leafies, then he'd probably think that leaves were the best too.

"Can I go now, Old Man." Deidara whines. "That one dog looks like it's about to eat me, un." He edges away from one of the girl's dogs, which snaps at his clothing.

"He." She corrects, and it takes a moment for Deidara to realize that she's talking to him, in defense of her dog no less. "Ichi is a he, and if you keep calling him it, he might just eat you." Then she turns around, and half growl-barks something to the dog, and that is fascinating. _Do dogs talk back? Can I learn the dog language too?_

"You all are dismissed." Jiji rises from his table, and strides away. "Kitsuchi, take them to their rooms." He doesn't turn back to ask about what Deidara wanted to show him.

Blue eyes follow the retreating old man for far too long. _I'd wanted to show you, un._

But he drags his mood back up to buoyancy. _I can show him later, un! And then he'll think the idea is great, and I'll be able to make all of these that I want._ He looks down at the spider in his hands, and smiles almost to himself. _And I can go find the leafy and see why she has my nose._

For the first time, in a very long time, he has some feeling of wild hope. _Maybe she'd know who the other boy in Tou's picture is._

* * *

He finds her again in the market, a day or so later, while Jiji's in some sort of meeting or other. She's looking at feathers, which is a little odd, because she doesn't wear feathers, but her nose still looks the same as it did a day ago. Which means that it's still like his. _I must endeavor to be brave._

Still, he stands there awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot for a full two minutes before cupping his hands about his mouth and yelling out to her. "Oi! Leafy Ninja, un!"

She pauses. "My apologies, Vendor-san." Her smile is polite, but plastic-like, which is not a good sign. She'd been plastic the entire time in Jiji's office too. "I seem to have been summoned by a rocky ninja." Finally, finally she turns around. "Did you want something?" She tilts her head to the side, the same way Kurotsuchi did when she wanted to emphasize how much he was _not_ a relation. "Rocky Ninja, un?"

A vein twitches in his temple. "Don't copy me, un!" He jabs a finger in her general direction. "I wanna talk to you, un!" _I wanna talk to you. I have to know._

She sets a hand on his shoulder, and her hand is so warm, and smiles a sunny smile at him. "We can talk somewhere far far away from everyone else got it?"

He peers up at her face. _That's the first happy smile I've seen from her._ "That is my nose, un." He remarks.

"No." She says, and then promptly pokes his nose. "That's my nose, un. You stole it from me." He considers it. _She is older...but I did not steal my own nose, un!_

* * *

"Why'd we have to talk in here?" Deidara sulkily sips his tea. The matron had forgotten that he's an only child again. He thought she would remember after what had happened last time.

Last time still brought a bad taste to his mouth. He'd been here with Kurotsuchi last time. He had a burnt tongue last time.

The tea house makes him uncomfortable, like there are a thousand fire ants marching up his back.

"Well, if you kept screaming leafy ninja in the street we'd start a riot, un." She tilts her head to the side again, and he has to remind himself that she's not doing it because she's looking down on him. She seemed to be thinking absently. It doesn't even look like it's a conscious gesture to practice the head tilt.

"Why do you look like me?" He asks, and something about him is horrifically hopeful. "I've never met someone from somewhere else that looked like me, un." _Would you be able to tell me about the other boy in the photograph? Would you? Do you know him? You...you look like him._

Deidara had spent many hours staring at that photograph. He can see the photograph boy in the girl before him more clearly now, it's in the cut of the jaw, something about the cheekbones, but it's subtle. He has to go check the photograph again, later. Has to.

She shrugs. "I don't know."

 _You don't know the photograph boy?_ "I thought we might be related, un."

"Don't you have more relatives?" She asks.

And it hurts. He wants to bawl. _No I don't. I have Jiji, Kitsuchi-san and Kurotsuchi. I don't have a family._ "No." He twiddles his thumbs and doesn't drink his tea, because the tea is burning hot, and he doesn't want to hurt his tongue. "Kaa and Tou died early." _Kaa and Tou are dead._ He has to make sure to look at the photographs often.

Otherwise it's so hard to remember their faces.

She pours him another cup of tea, and slides it across the table. "I don't know if we're blood related, Deidara-kun."

He looks up at her. _You called me Deidara-kun._ "But we might be then, if you don't know." It's almost, almost like-He doesn't finish the thought.

She frowns. "I don't think we are."

Deidara closes his eyes, and reminds himself that he is not allowed to cry. _Knew she wouldn't like me._ "Okay."

"You can call me cousin in private if you'd like."

"Cousin Hana?" _You would? You want to be my cousin?_ "You'd let me call you Cousin, un?" He picks up the tea that she's offering him and gulps it down. It scaddles his tongue and his throat but he doesn't care the least. _Cousin Hana? She can be my cousin?_

"Yeah." She sighs.

It's enough. He overturns the table in the space of a breath and he's laughing breathlessly against her neck. "Thank you, Leafy-I mean, Cousin Hana, un. You won't regret it ever, un." _Mine. I have a cousin. I'm not a penniless orphan beggar._

"Deidara-kun?" She peels him off of her gently after a few minutes. "I have to keep shopping now, okay?"

"You're going shopping?" She'd been doing that before, but it hadn't seemed like it was something she actually _wore._ "What for, un?"

"I want to find presents for my family." She sets the teacups he'd overturned back onto the table.

He doesn't want her to go. _You are just my cousin. It's not enough time._ He's struck quietly by a sense a fear. _Maybe she'll change her mind._ He takes her by the hand and pulls her out towards the door. "I can take you, un!" _And I'll be nice and everything and you won't ever change your mind. Not ever. Not ever ever ever._

"Slow down, Deidara-kun." She laughs as he pulls her along. "I'm not in that much of a hurry, un!"

* * *

"Look at this one, Cousin Hana!" He pulls out an extension that had been lost beneath the crow feather. "It has so many pretty colors in it, un." It is burnt orange like the setting sun, fading into deep red at the ends. _It is something bright and colorful to match those red triangles._

"Oh, that's a good pick, Deidara-kun." She reaches out, and ruffles his hair. He pats his head gently after her hand has left. "Oh, does that bother you? It does always bother my Otouto."

"No..." Deidara pauses there in the middle the street, his hand still over his hair. "No one's ever done that before." _I, I don't know if Kaa or Tou ever did._

 _Don't remember._ And shame wells up, hot and guilty and leaves him flushed and upset. _Why can't I remember?_

"Well, I'll ruffle your hair for you." She does it again, and he finds something else to focus on.

"You have an otouto, un?" He bounces towards the next stand. "What's he like?"

"Kiba-chan is my sun and sky. He likes lemon candies, like me, and he has the same fangs on his cheeks as I do." She has a fond smile on her face. Deidara doesn't want to share, but he supposes that it's fair.

 _Can't ask for so much. Can't._

"He sounds nice, un." Deidara pauses in front of a fruit stand. "Do you think he'd like me too?" _Do you think he'd like to be Cousin Kiba?_

"Why wouldn't he like you?" She taps him on the nose. "I like you. That's all Kiba-chan needs." It's such an absurdly simple statement, but.

He frowns. "No one likes me really, un." But he forcibly cheers himself up a moment later. "Someday I'll be great at the explosion release, un! And then they'll all love me, un! And, and they'll all be nice to me, and I'll have lots of nice things, un!" He waves his hands around, trying to describe what he meant.

He'd show Jiji his spiders, and then he could make other things, and then art wouldn't be a problem, it wouldn't be a problem, and then maybe Jiji will stop being disappointed, and Kurotsuchi would think that he's cool instead of no fun.

She kneels down in front of him. "Just know that I like you, okay?" Cousin Hana brushes his hair back away from his face. "Never forget that in this world there's someone who likes you."

He nods very seriously. "I'll remember, Cousin Hana, un." He feels warm. _It's like Kaa._ And maybe it's okay to forget.

Cousin Hana pats him on the head. "That's good. Make sure you keep that promise, alright?"

"DEIDARA." The crowd parts. Jiji appears, his arms crossed over his chest as he strides forwards. Deidara wilts. _I'm going to get yelled at for slacking off. I thought that he'd be at the whatever meeting a little longer._ "What have you been doing all day?"

"Remember you're not supposed to call me cousin in front of other people, ne?" Cousin Hana whispers in his ear, and yes, her request is a little strange, but he wants her to like him. Wants it, wants it so bad.

"I was spending the day with Leafy, un!" He steps forwards towards his teacher, a slight quiver in his step, because he's about to tell a lie, and he doesn't like lying very much. "Leafy has my nose, so I though maybe..." He trails off. "Maybe she'd like me." It's a very bad lie, because it's almost the truth, but Cousin Hana's still smiling and she looks happy, so he takes what he can get.

"You should stop consorting with weak Konoha shinobi, Deidara." Jiji sets a hand on Deidara's shoulder and marches off with him, but Deidara doesn't entirely believe in the horribleness of Leafy Ninja anymore. _Cousin Hana is from Konoha. Cousin Hana is wonderful._ "Didn't you want to show me something the other day?"

He looks back at her. She's standing in the light of the setting sun, her hair bleeding orange slightly in the light, and he thinks that the group of feathers he'd chosen was a good choice.

But it's back to the subject at hand. "I did have something, un." He looks up at his shishou for a moment. "Can I go back to my room to go get it?"

Jiji waves a hand at him. "Go on."

He does not _seem_ angry, but Deidara's long come to accept that he doesn't know a lot about what made other people angry.

* * *

"This is it, un." He holds out the spiders. They're made of white clay, and chakra imbibed. They'll explode on command, but they're also very pretty. _It is a, a-I forgot the word to use. It is better than it was before._

Jiji's eyes darken. "Didn't I tell you that you weren't supposed to play?"

"It's not playing, un!" He doesn't want Jiji to think that he was playing. He wasn't playing. He'd put a lot of thought into this. He'd worked hard to find the-the com- _oh. Compromise. That's the word._ "It's a compromise." He tosses it into the air. "Katsu!"

It explodes into fine dust. It works just as well as his boring round balls, but he's a little sad that this one is gone now.

Normally it is the explosion that captivates him, but making the spiders had been fun. He is sad that it has to disappear, but that's what the explosion does, and in the one moment that it goes, it is the most beautiful thing in existence.

Jiji picks up his other spider. "And how do you propose you'll use this on the battlefield?"

Deidara blinks. "Un?"

"How will you make this when you are about to be killed by some enemy nin?" Jiji shakes the spider at him.

He had not thought of that. "Can make them faster." He offers, but it's a weak, half hearted mumble. This conversation has been nothing like how he'd pictured it would go. _Why can't I do something right?_

Jiji drops his spider on the ground. It cracks slightly. And then Jiji steps forward. A foot raised, then lowered.

He wants to scream. _No. No. NO!_ But he can't scream.

The spider is ground to dust beneath Jiji's foot. "Do not do this again, Deidara."

He nods once, something jagged and rotten in his heart, and turns and races out the door, a hand over his eyes. _Don't wanna. Don't. Wanna._

* * *

He spends a day in his room, looking over each clay spider that he's made. He picks one up, and drops it on the floor.

It cracks, but it hurts something deep inside him to see the spiders like this. He picks it up, and with a quick burst of chakra, it's whole again.

He gathers up all thirteen remaining spiders, the first batch of test subjects, in his arms, and wanders out towards his training field.

They are only beautiful if they explode, and he can't bear to destroy them needlessly. Just dropping and stepping- _No. Un. They deserve to die like they were supposed to._

He sits down under a rocky outcropping, and tosses his first spider into the air. "Katsu!" He is showered with dust. _Only, only another twelve._

Each one cuts something new from him. By the seventh, he tears up, and can't blink it away. By the tenth, he can barely see through the film over his eyes. By the eleventh, his hands are shaking so badly that he doesn't toss it up quite high enough. A clay shard cuts his cheek just below his left eye.

By the twelfth spider he has to sacrifice, he hunches over and weeps silently, rocking back and forth. But his pity party has gone on long enough. He tosses it into the air. "K-katsu."

It splinters into a shower of white dust motes.

He brushes himself off, rubs a sleeve over his eyes, and starts molding hand signs. He is not supposed to play.

* * *

He's practicing, but the sound of a fight out on the water draws his attention towards the river. _That's Cousin Hana's team, un._

That's the dark man that came with them, the boy with pale eyes and the other nondescript dark haired boy, and the three large dogs that he recognizes as Cousin Hana's

But there's no Cousin Hana. _Where'd she go? Why isn't she with them?_

He dusts himself off, and heads towards them, careful to not attract their attention. _Oh._ The dark man is watching the sparring match between teammates, and the dogs are sprawled all about him.

 _Cousin Hana is practicing something._ He peers around a rocky outcropping at her. She has her hands against the earth, an earth ring rising all around her.

"Is it the fact that I'm not shaping the chakra correctly before release?" She seems frustrated, a small pout as she chews lightly on her bottom lip.

He hops over her earth ring. "What're you doing?"

She jerks, a kunai in hand a moment later. _It was a bad decision._ "Deidara-kun, it's better to announce yourself from a bit farther away." She puts the kunai away, and smiles at him."And to answer your question, I'm attempting to make the Earth Spike jutsu work."

Her reaction wasn't about him. He sighs and snuggles a little closer.

"You have an earth affinity too, un?" He tilts his head back with a smile. "I have two affinities, un!"

"You already know your affinity? That's impressive." She's smiling up at the sky, and he feels something warm and happy bubble up.

He giggles. "You're trying the Earth Spike one, un?" He stands with his feet shoulder width apart and uses only three hand signs before slamming his hands down. A line of earth spikes rises with varying intensity and speed. "'S easier if you make the chakra pointy." It is difficult to explain why it is so, but bubbly chakra and pointy chakra and smooth chakra and rough chakra is better at making different things.

"Alright." She ruffles his hair. "I'll try it your way."

She raises her hands in a seal, but he remembers another question. "Cousin Hana, un?" There'd been a Chunin Exam thing going on, Jiji had mentioned it last week, but he hadn't been paying attention.

It's only recently that he remembers that Cousin Hana is only here for the Exams. _She will have to go away._ The thought disquiets him.

"Yes?" She slams her hands onto the ground, a series of seven spikes wobble their way into existence.

"Did you get hurt during the test, un?"

She turns to him, confusion in her brown eyes. "Nope, un. Why'd you ask?"

He scuffs the ground with the tip of his shoe. It is _embarrassing_ to be caught worrying. "It's super dangerous to take the chunin exams. The Old Man said so, un."

"Don't worry, Deidara-kun." She sits down next to him. "I don't think I'm going to get hurt much this time around."

"This time around, un?" He leans closer. "There was a last time?" _Cousin Hana isn't very much older than me. Not much at all, but she's already gone to a Chunin Exam?_

"I took the exams during the last rotation in Suna." She shrugs. "It went a lot worse there." There's an edge of something raw in her face. He doesn't like it.

"I don't want to exams to end, un." He sets his head against her shoulder and taps his foot against the ground. "Then you'll have to go away again, and no one will like me anymore." She lets him stay instead of pushing him away.

She smells like sunshine and earth.

She wraps an arm around his thin shoulders. "I'll still like you even if I'm two countries away, Deidara-kun."

He sniffs. "It won't be the same, un." And suddenly he can't stop the tears that have gathered in his eyes. "The Old Man didn't like my spider, Cousin Hana. He thinks-" Deidara gasps and shudders. He's not supposed to. It isn't right. He's not supposed to cry, but he can't stop. "It was just a game." He buries his face back in her lap, and she does not push him away. "He thinks I play too much. The Old Man doesn't like art, un." She runs her fingers through his hair, and he pulls himself back together slowly.

"Show me your spider." She take his hands. "I want to see what it looks like." Deidara turns his face up to her and she brushes his tears away with a sleeve. "I think it's nice that you made him a spider."

"I'll show it to you later, un." He's glanced at the sky and realized that it's almost noon. "If I don't go back, I'll get yelled at again." Not supposed to be playing. But her words give her hope. _Cousin Hana believes._

 _Cousin Hana wants to see my spiders._ He is almost sorry that he's katsu-ed all of them now.

"Alright. Show me your spider later." She lets him go.

He smiles for her, wide and warm, the same as her smiles. "I knew you'd like to see them, Cousin Hana, un!"

And as he leaves, he hears her laughter ring out behind him. It is bright, brighter than the noonday sun.

* * *

He's sitting in his room again, rolling clay between his hands, fingernails blunted and cracked slightly around the edges. When he's happy with his creations, he likes to think that he has an artist's hands.

Cousin Hana wants to see his spiders, so he'll make her some new ones.

It is just difficult is all, to think of shaping eight little legs and attaching a head when his hands a trembling. _I'm not supposed to play._

And he sees Jiji's foot come down once more, and feels the shattered edges of something hard in his chest scrap together. _Don't want. Don't want._

He closes his eyes, and thinks about Cousin Hana, about her long brown hair, her smile, the way she never seemed to mind that he wants and takes and is pushy. She deserves more than his spiders, which are just not, not enough. _They're just a game._ He thinks about how her jaw curves the same way the photograph boy does.

He doesn't think that Jiji ought to know about it.

He sets the clay down, and goes to look at his photographs again. _Jiji shouldn't know about the photograph boy._

But it's also a photograph of Tou. _This is our heritage, Dei-kun._ And the fireworks are twisting up into the air again, exploding.

He sits down at his table again, and pulls the block of white clay towards him. He has more purpose now. _Cousin Hana is cousin. Cousin Hana needs her heritage too._

* * *

The morning of the third test, he runs late. He sees Cousin Hana and her team about to enter the stadium, and he forces himself to run faster.

"Wait, un!" He remembers that he is not supposed to call her cousin. "Leafy, take this." He shoves two round spheres into her hand. "Put it in your pouch, un. Throw it at someone dangerous and it will explode." He whispers. "I'll show you my spider later, un."

And there's that small sharp smile, that's brighter than the sun. "Thanks, un. I'll hold you to it."

He grins and runs away up into the stadium seats. "I'll watch you fight, Leafy!" He has to sit a bit away from Jiji today, because 'pparently another old man is around so he can't sit there, but he sits close. The dark man is sitting with the other old man and a few guards and stuff. Deidara doesn't know him particularly well even after a month. Deidara is fairly certain that the man wouldn't like him anyway.

It's only about then, that he realises that he forgot to tell her what she was supposed to do with those round things.

They needed chakra.

Dread wells up in his stomach. _What if something bad happens? What if? What if?_

* * *

The nondescript dark haired boy fights first. And Deidara has to admit that he is good, very very good. His opponent gives him trouble, but it isn't a true struggle.

Sure he bleeds, but Deidara bleeds daily for his craft.

The explosions don't come easy. His nails are always cracked and broken.

The scratches on the boy's arms are not serious, but as he heads back up to his team, Cousin Hana surges forward to check on him.

Deidara looks down at his hands for a moment, notes his own bruised knuckles, and scratched and calloused fingerpads.

He is too far away to hear what her team is saying, but it looks warm. It looks fun.

Even though it should never actually have been right of him to stare so blatantly at Konoha Shinobi without a hint of dislike.

* * *

Cousin Hana is the next to fight. The dark man's hands are clenched in his lap, shaking almost imperceptibly from the strength of his grip, Deidara can see it. _He's a sensei, isn't he?_

And he doesn't understand, because a sensei is supposed to care less for their students than a Jiji, but he hasn't seen it. _Every sensei that I've met cares more than Jiji._ He puts the thought away in a box in his mind.

The clamor in his stomach grows worse. _But maybe she won't have to use them. She doesn't know how. Maybe she won't._ But he knows that she will, because she trusts him, trusts that it's fine. And that makes him afraid, makes his palms sweat and his hands shake.

He puts them back in his lap, where they twist around each other in nervous motions.

"Will Inuzuka Hana of Konoha and Ishimaru Masato from Suna come down for the fourth match?"

She flips over the railing and into the ring, her dogs following her down.

"Let the fourth match, begin!" Kitsuchi-san leaps back, and she melts into the earth, her dogs leaping and spinning in the air.

The boy dodges, and makes three hand signs, slamming his hand down on the dusty earth. Static electricity rises up from the ground.

Cousin Hana bursts back across the surface, her hands reaching for his ankles.

She tosses something at one of her dogs, who leaps up into the air to catch it, and then there are four dogs down in the stadium, growling, snapping reaching for the boy.

The boy makes another raiton jutsu, and Cousin Hana is Cousin Hana again.

Deidara leans forward, and sucks in a breath.

Her hand slides towards her pouch. Deidara makes four hand seals discreetly, and reaches, reaches, reaches. It's close enough.

His chakra connects, the same moment it leaves her hand, but there's another chakra already there. _No. No. No._

She'd added chakra of her own.

The explosion that results is something that he never wants to see again, but Cousin Hana is safe. Cousin Hana is fine. Cousin Hana has rolled out of the blast radius. His heart comes out of his mouth, but he sets his hands on the seat in front of him, and gasps.

It was too close. Too close. Cousin Hana has a lightning affinity. Two affinities, just like him.

The wheels begin to turn. _She doesn't know the photograph boy, but to her he might not be the photograph boy._

The next match in the exam marks the first death. Deidara's too distracted to care.

The sun rises high.

* * *

The second death comes between two genin from his own country. He hears Kitsuchi-san curse under his breath when it happens, something about politics, but Deidara doesn't care. They weren't people who were nice to him to begin with.

He doesn't care, he tells himself, but the blood staining the sand turns his stomach anyway.

The next match is the match with the nondescript boy, and Cousin Hana. He doesn't know who is better.

As happens, he doesn't find out.

"I forfeit." Cousin Hana crosses her arms over her chest. Her voice echoing loudly over the silent stadium.

Kitsuchi-san raises an eyebrow at her. "You're mostly fresh, are you sure?"

Her own eyebrow rises. "I'm sure." Deidara doesn't understand. _Why would she let him win without even fighting?_

She steps toward her teammate, and slips something into his hand. _That's the other-_ He isn't sure how he feels about her decision. It is supposed to be hers, why is she sharing? But he remembers that his cousin is kind, kinder than he is used to. _She is trying to help._

"A smart girl." Jiji leans forward, his voice carrying over to where he sits. "She doesn't stand a chance against the Uchiha." _Cousin Hana isn't-_

"Hmmm." The other old man, the Hokage, leans back, puffing on his pipe. "I don't think she did it out of self defence."

So Cousin Hana is not worried about being hurt by her teammate. Deidara thinks back to how they'd stood together, all three of them, how she'd been concerned for her teammate's scratches, how Cousin Hana is just _nice._

She wants to help him. Deidara realizes at last. Her Uchiha teammate is important to her, in such ways that she would give up a gift for him that she would probably never see again.

Deidara watches the fight intently, his hands held in a focal sign in his lap.

The Uchiha fights well for the first half, he's trading taijustu, matching an older opponent blow for blow, but he's still younger. He wouldn't be able to hold off the onslaught for much longer. He's used too many katon jutsu.

 _When is he going to use the help?_ A bead of sweat drips down Deidara's forehead. It is hard to hold the chakra like this, but Cousin Hana wanted to protect her teammate.

She doesn't know that Deidara's the one doing the protecting, doesn't know that he offered. She wouldn't know. He didn't tell her.

And then the two boys in the ring flash through hand signs together and the Uchiha breathes fire again, but-he misses.

He misses, and something is clearly wrong because his eyes are bleeding and he's completely unfocused. Deidara feels another bead of sweat drip off of his chin. He holds the sign, chakra waiting, humming beneath the surface.

Cousin Hana is depending on him, even if she doesn't know.

The Uchiha staggers, his shoulder bleeding freely. _Maybe he's poisoned?_

"ITACHI! GENJUTSU!" So that's what it is. He's always been bad at genjutsu himself, so of course he wouldn't be able to identify it. _I must remember that I ought to. Not everyone has a Hana to remind them of it._

The Uchiha punches his opponent in the jaw, and then his hands fall to his pouch. Deidara tenses. This is the moment.

And he reaches, reaches pushing chakra faster and faster towards his clay. His aim is unerring. The resounding boom that shakes the stadium brings up a cloud of sand large enough to bury four grown men.

"Katsu." He murmurs, as another bead of sweat crawls down his neck.

He wipes his sweat away with a sleeve, breathing slightly uneven. _What if I killed the Uchiha? What if I hurt him too?_

The Uchiha rolls out of the dust cloud, and climbs, swaying, to his feet.

His other teammate forfeits, but Deidara leans his head against the back of the chair before him, and _understands._

 _He's also trying to protect his teammate. They love each other._ It is so simple now that he understands. It is so easy. So clear.

The dark man is on his feet-"Shit. Fucking hell."-cursing under his breath as he makes one hand sign, and just flat out disappears, a black shadow streaking down the wall and across the sand.

"ITA-KUN!" Cousin Hana races across the stadium floor as soon as the forfeiture is called, and then everything is thrown into pandemonium. "MEDIC!"

Deidara climbs to his feet, and the world spins a little around him. Jiji's moving forwards, hurrying, and Deidara knows just knows that he's headed towards Cousin Hana.

Her sensei gathers the Uchiha up in his arms and bundles the three of them off of the stadium floor, heading straight for the medical tent.

Deidara trails along behind Jiji on swaying feet. The ground before him _moves_ and he is exhausted and trembling, but he's done his job. Cousin Hana is safe, is fine, and his heart can stop feeling like a fluttering bird.

He is ashamed to say that he collapses soon afterwards.

* * *

He wakes up in his own bed, Jiji sitting by his bedside. "You lived." It's as a short description as ever of his circumstances.

He nods carefully, and feels the room shake. "Yes, Jiji, un."

"What happened?" There's a tight cast to Jiji's lips, and he's got angry eyes.

Deidara blinks. "Too much chakra." The lie is as easy as breathing. He'd expended too much chakra, so the pressure of Jiji's killing intent had been terrifying.

Jiji frowns, eyebrows drawing together, but says nothing more on the subject. "I'll leave you to it then, Deidara." He pauses before the dresser, eyes tracing the photographs, but Deidara's shoved photograph boy behind Kaa and Tou's wedding portrait.

Jiji sighs. "Let the dead lie, Deidara." He sounds tired, but he wants Deidara to forget that there was anything before his life now.

He isn't willing to forget, but it's a reminder to put his photographs away. "I'll move them later, Jiji, un." He promises. _I'll never forget._

As Jiji leaves, his hand knocks against the table, and his pile of notes teeters precariously. "And clean your room, Deidara. There are too many notes here."

 _Too many notes._ Jiji disappears out the door.

Deidara climbs to his feet, and grabs a bucket to head down to the river. There's a lot he has to do if he's going to finish everything. _Cousin Hana needs her heritage._ He needs to make spiders, and then he has too many things to copy and not enough time tonight.

He doesn't know when she's leaving, but the exams are over, so he has to make this quick.

* * *

It's late morning when he finishes, and tucks his spiders in his pouch. He rises, and rubs the sleep from his eyes with his right sleeve, pins and needles shooting through his legs and feet. He bounces from one foot to the other, to make it better, and washes his hands in the sink, the white clay flaking off in large chunks.

He's torn a fingernail again, digging clay from the river bank with his bare hands, because that is the best way to get clay, and the water stings against the open wound.

He hisses, and dries it carefully.

Then he goes back to the medical tent, because he doesn't know where else to find Cousin Hana.

There's a guard in front of the tent flap, and he _knows_ that Cousin Hana is there. Knows she is, but the masked guard probably won't let him through. Luckily, the man seems asleep.

He steps forward and tries to duck under the guard's arm. He's snatched up by the collar not a moment later. "Hey! Let me down, un! I want to talk to Leafy, and you can't stop me, un!" He lands against the dirt, hard, a tanto pointed in the direction of his chest. "I'm the student of the Tsuchikage, un!"

Sure, Jiji might not mean too much protection from his own granddaughter, but the dumb, leafy guard from a village of tree hugging shinobi won't kill him. Probably.

"And what do you think you're doing, _Hound-san_?" And Cousin Hana appears. "He's just a child! Why are you pointing an unsheathed blade in his direction?" She sets her hands on his arms. "Deidara-kun? Are you alright?"

He buries his face in her shoulder. "Leafy." He mumbles. "He wouldn't let me in to talk to you, and you'll leave soon, un." It is true. He needs to talk to her, needs to give her his present.

She picks him up, and they head back into the tent together. "Well, now you're here, on the inside where everyone else is."

It's only when he pulls away that he notices how truly terrible she looks. _She was trying to be happy because she doesn't want me to be concerned._ "Were you crying, Cousin Hana, un?" He brushes his fingers under the dark circles under her eyes, which are red rimmed and swollen. "Your eyes are red and puffy."

"I don't know, Deidara-kun." She sets him down. "I was asleep, un." _You don't look like you were asleep, un._ Did her teammate's injuries really affect her this much?

He frowns and jerks his head at the Uchiha. "Is it because of him?" _Is he so important to you?_ But then he sees that her Sensei is also in a hospital bed. That he also looks pale and wane. The dark man's green eye makeup makes him look worse.

"He's a part of it." She threads her fingers through his hair, a comforting gesture, and she's still looking to make sure that he doesn't worry."But we're not here to talk about Ita-kun, right?"

Deidara shakes his head. _No. I need to give you something._ He reaches into his pouch. "I wanted to show you my spiders, un." He thrusts his hands forwards. "I made three better ones for you, un." and that's not exactly what he wants to say, but he's sure that _Hound-san_ has not gone away. So he can't say anything, because that is dangerous.

"They're very cute, Dei-kun." She ruffles his hair, and it's good that she doesn't know. _If she knew, I'm sure that she'd say something._ But that's okay, she'd learn soon enough. "I'm glad you made them better this time." She takes them, and holds them up to the light.

He climbs onto her lap and wraps his arms around her neck. It is clear that she will leave soon. That she has to, and he can't keep her with any sort of force. "They'll explode too, if you say katsu and add chakra." He whispers. _I hope you'll try it sometime._ His fingers are stinging again. "You're my cousin, un." He'd never asked Tou about the boy in the photograph, but he has thought about it. He laughs a little without looking up. "I'm glad it's you, Cousin Hana." _Always glad._

She pokes his cheek. "Why are you giving a foreign shinobi explosive weapons, Dei-kun?" _If only you knew._ But it's best if she doesn't know.

He pulls back. "M not giving any foreign shinobi anything, un." He leans in to whisper in her ear. "I'm giving Cousin Hana a present." He frowns. "Can't teach you how to make them, un." He mumbles. "But you're _cousin,_ should know how." And his notes would teach her just fine.

She'd know how to pull shapes from clay, know how to make two types of chakra and she'd know art too.

She runs a hand through his hair. "Remember that I like you, Dei-kun." She pulls him close, and he can smell the sunshine and earth under the stench of blood that clings to her like a shroud. _It's all the Uchiha fault._ He muses. _He bled too much, and now Cousin Hana smells like blood._ "Don't ever tell anyone what you did today, un. And never stop being nice." She's still worrying for him, and she'd worry more if she'd known what he'd done. But he feels warm, he doesn't want her to leave.

He nods, and they break apart. "I'll never forget you, un." He whispers, and makes sure that her hands are clenched tightly around his spiders. _Take them with you when you go. Please don't lose them, Cousin Hana._ "I love you, Cousin Hana." He flushes, and his eyes fill with tears. He takes one last look at her, her tired eyes, but pleasant smile that he does not expect to see again, because they'd meet again when their villages are fighting, and traces a hand down the fangs on her cheeks and then the hitai-ate that she wears about her neck.

 _It's all their fault._ He thinks wildly. _It's all their fault that she has to be from Konoha. Why can't she always have been here? Why couldn't I have been from there instead?_

Then he runs out of the tent. He can't ask her to stay.

She can't stay.

But he promises himself that he'd see his cousin again. _I will see you again. I will._

 _And it won't be because I have to hurt you._

* * *

"To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides."

-David Viscott, _How to Live with Another Person_

* * *

 **A.N.** And there we have it. Deidara's head space. (It's really kind of...well, he tries to be happy, and there's plenty that he doesn't see, but the best word for it is attention starved.

Thank you so much to AnimeFreak71777(:P), OddShadow (Sort of. And addressing last review: I think I was responding to CasJeanne's review on where Hana was during this.), libraryrockerr (Kihona has no idea what the shadow is, only that it's hurt her waste of space. Thus she's quite mean.), Cooked Ghost (Surprisingly, this was the first time that Kaito...exploded people. And he did not know what would happen before hand. And Ensui's perspective is always, "AHHH people I love are getting hurt! Protect them! AHH! And not quite, she has several other missions which were also fairly awful.), zilese (I'm so glad! Fugaku is one of my favorite characters in Bloodless, and Ino's perception of him was really quite interesting.), fernandfeather, Rileyyheartt (Yeah, Danzo is interesting, but I've more planned for his character than simply bad person.), and Forgotten Lost Ancient (Kakashi and Hana interactions are always interesting...) for reviewing!

And everyone else who favorited and followed!

~Tavina.


	11. Ikebana (An Arrangement in Five Parts)

**I do not own Naruto.** This story is dedicated to the 500th reviewer of Bloodless, Shion Lee, who requested something about Fugaku. I hope you like it!

* * *

"Parents aren't the people you come from. They're the people you want to be when you grow up."

-Jodi Picoult, _Handle with Care_

* * *

1\. Purple Hyacinths. (Apologies)

* * *

"I asked Itachi to invite his team over for dinner." Mikoto comments as she sits stitching a few tears on his clothing. Her head rests between his shoulder blades, a steady comforting weight.

Fugaku doesn't look up. Instead he fills out line seventeen of the tax form with a number for personal income and nods. "Now if only they'd actually come to dinner." He comments mildly. _They did not last time, despite our best hopes._

Mikoto sighs. "Is it so bad that I want him to make some friends?"

"It might be better to allow that some things are true, and that hope will not change them." He counters, and fills out line 18, which accounts for property damage within the past year.

Mikoto opens her mouth to respond, but they both hear the soft sound of the front door sliding open, and their conversation ceases.

Fugaku continues to fill out his tax forms, and Mikoto smooths her sewing over her lap. They might have ideas about what the truth really is, but there is no need to burden their son.

"I invited Hana and Tokuma-kun over for dinner." Itachi reports as he steps over the doorway.

Mikoto turns to him with a smile of anticipation. "And they said that they were coming?"

 _Mikoto._ Fugaku thinks half exasperatedly as he sets form 8B of the tax records down. _If they were not coming, would our son be so excited?_ Itachi is fidgeting with a loose thread on his sleeve, a habit that he'd long grown out of, but it's back again for this occasion.

"It's just Hana." Itachi murmurs as he troops over toward the hallway. "Tokuma-kun said that he didn't want to come."

"And your sensei?" Fugaku hasn't met Nara Ensui much over the years, and the last time the man had been anywhere near his home, he'd an urgent case to take care of down at the station, so he'd hardly bothered to do much more than nod.

Itachi pauses at the doorway. "I didn't invite Sensei, Tou-san." A slight frown works its way onto his eldest son's face. "Sensei doesn't go out much."

Fugaku nods, but inside he is burning. _So two-thirds of the people you spend your days with have no desire whatever to spend time with us._

 _It figures that the only one to say that they are coming is the Inuzuka._ His thoughts turn sharply back to Kouga, to Kouga who laughed too loudly and chewed with his mouth open and scandalized Otou-san the one and only time that he'd been invited over. _Probably here for the free food._

He ignores the thought that Kouga had always then snuck back into the district on the days that Otou-san worked down at the station, and dragged him out for yakisoba and mochi.

They are both buried now. Kouga and Otou-san.

He does not think much more of the matter.

* * *

It's not dinner time yet, but the sun is still sinking towards the horizon, and there's been no teammates incoming.

Itachi looks slightly despondent as he makes his way to the dinner table. "Hana said that she was coming."

Fugaku does not want to think that rumors of their hospitality have gotten so poor that his son's teammate would say that they were coming, but not actually show up. _It's below an Inuzuka's point of pride to lie._ Kosshi had said once, tossing her wild hair over her shoulder with a careless shrug.

 _But is that an Inuzuka's code, or is it just your own, Kosshi?_ She doesn't respond. Fugaku reminds himself carefully, as if testing the waters to see if the wounds still cut, that she won't ever be responding ever again.

It still hurts.

"I'm sure she is." Mikoto smooths down Itachi's hair, and makes her way towards the kitchen, but then pauses, stops and comes back and sits down.

The door slides open, and two sets of footsteps make their way down the hall. Mikoto rises and opens the door to the study.

A small girl with surprisingly neat dark hair steps through the door, holding a pot. "My cousin wanted me to bring a peace-offering, Mikoto-san." And it is _strange._ Strange to see an Inuzuka without at least one large dog trailing behind.

Mikoto smiles, but it's clear that she doesn't know how to react. She raises an eyebrow in his direction. _Anata? Is this an Inuzuka girl?_ "Oh that's perfectly alright, Hana-chan. Did your sensei and other teammate come with you?"

She laughs, fiddling with a loose thread on her sleeve, and Fugaku is strongly reminded of his own son's actions earlier. _So her habits have been rubbing off on Itachi._ "Actually...Sensei never comes to these things and Toku said he had something to do at home today..."

She's deflecting, which is surprisingly not like an Inuzuka. Itachi had said that their teammate did not _want_ to come, which is not the same thing as 'having something to do at home.'

"So the Hyuga doesn't want to visit us because we're so beneath him?" He steps out from behind the door frame, and she freezes, a fake smile on her lips.

She attempts to arrange it into something less awkward, but she's not old enough to have mastered every facial expression. It still looks fake. "Actually, Uchiha-san, Hyuga Tokuma is probably the least arrogant member of his clan that I know. He can't make it today because he doesn't feel that he'd be welcome wandering around the Uchiha District as an inheritor of the Byakugan."

Her tone is calm, clipped, and it sounds nothing like any Inuzuka would ever say, but it reminds him of someone, and he has no idea who it would be, because the girl, now that she's straightened, looks vaguely like a younger version of Kosshi.

He tilts his head, arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the door. "Who are you?"

She bows the bare minimum angle to pass as polite. "Inuzuka Hana, Uchiha-san. The first time we met you said I took after my father." And now suddenly he can place her. The little girl he'd met at Tsume's house, the blond-haired man who Tsume had nearly lost her clan membership over.

Iwa no Kaito had always faded into the background unless Tsume was there to pull him into the light. He'd been polite, but never overtly friendly.

Fugaku had never liked him. There was something about the late Iwa no Kaito that always rubbed him in all the wrong directions.

And now this is his daughter, his daughter who'd been the talk of the jonin break room a few months back for her extraordinary viciousness. "So you're the girl who ripped out her opponent's throat in the Chunin Exams."

"Ah, well, that's what Sensei and the boys told me afterwards...I don't really know." She stops attempting to make her smile even passingly genuine. And again, she's back to deflection, back to mincing words instead of stating straight out, what she wants.

And that's always what Iwa no Kaito had done that'd bothered him to distraction. Every question was answered with deflection.

"Oh, come, Anata you mustn't scare Hana-chan." Mikoto sets a hand on his arm and guides him toward the dining room. "Itachi-kun's waiting, Shisui-kun. He wants to spar after dinner today."

He feels almost disappointed, which is unreasonable of him, but the ghosts in the room weigh heavy, and this little girl does not live up to the legacy that he'd expected.

* * *

"Did you have a favorite subject at the Academy, Hana-chan?" He's left Mikoto to carry the conversation, which she does effortlessly as always, but the discussion will be there later.

The girl picks up a rice ball with her chopsticks, and pauses to answer before eating. "I was always fond of history." That she has table manners, and used them, must also be a reminder of Iwa no Kaito.

"And did you have a favorite dessert?" Mikoto's doing her best, but his own disapproval is heavy in the air tonight. Itachi and Shisui merely cast glances at each other and do not speak. Sasuke down closer to the end of the table mashes his rice together in an embarrassing amalgamation, but today, Fugaku lets it be instead of helping him.

He doesn't feel like much of anything today.

"I'm very fond of mochi." She smiles, dimples flashing. "Itachi-kun is fond of dango, so we eat that more often when we're out." And even when she smiles, it's small and hardly like anything Kosshi would have done at all.

"I see." Mikoto smiles back at her. "And if you had to pick one person in the world that you love best, who would it be?"

Inuzuka Hana tilts her head to the side, and considers it carefully. "My otouto, Kiba." She says at last. "Kiba is my sun and sky, and I love him best."

And he's caught in the grip of memory.

 _So Kosshi-chan, who do you love best? She pauses for a moment, and considers it more seriously that he's ever seen her do._

 _My imouto, Tsume. I love her best._

There's something else that Mikoto has said, and Inuzuka Hana has answered, but he does not catch it.

"So, Hana-chan, what is your other teammate like?" Mikoto asks and they've seemingly come back to the realm of teammates again.

She pauses, and sets her chopsticks over her bowl, a larger, wider smile on her face, and a fond light in her eyes as she answers. "Well, Sensei's a not so typical Nara who likes to drink tea and moan about doing actual work while doing work." She taps her fingers against the table top restlessly as she continues. "Toku's a corrupted Hyuga who laughs has bad posture and makes really bad jokes, and Mu-kun is easily embarrassed and is really fond of over analyzing situations...And Itachi-kun's very kind."

She considers the Aburame boy her teammate still.

"So you still consider the Aburame boy a teammate?"

She doesn't turn to look at him when she replies, but there's a sharp edge of steel in her tone."He'll be my teammate until the day I die. I offer that same benefit to your son, Uchiha-san."

"Oh don't mind him, Hana-chan." Mikoto laughs airily and offers her more rice. "Fugaku's bad at speaking to children."

And now she turns to look at him, her dark eyes unblinking for a long moment, as if she wants to look into his soul. "You asked me earlier if I ripped someone's throat out during the Chunin Exams, Uchiha-san." And maybe this is how she is still Inuzuka, the steel in her spine never wavers even as she sets her shaking hands under the table. "I do that to people who threaten my teammates. Your son is in safe hands."

 _I'll protect my pack until the day I die, 'Gaku. My sister isn't ever going to walk alone._

And then Sasuke, who must have gotten bored with the conversation breaks his reverie.

Rice flies across the table towards Inuzuka Hana, and she leans forward reflexively, catching it with her teeth. Sasuke shrieks with laughter. "Again! Again!"

Fugaku blinks. _Did she just-_

"Sasuke! Apologize to Hana-chan right now." Mikoto sounds mortified. "I'm so sorry Hana-chan. Sasuke is normally so well-behaved..."

And suddenly their guest breaks out into a fit of giggles. "No, it's alright. Kiba-chan and I play this game a lot during dinner." So she was not normally a polite girl at the dinner table.

He'd misjudged her. _Remember my sun and stars, people act differently in different situations._

Nevertheless, Sasuke should remember to act appropriately at the dinner table, no matter what sorts of games Tsume's younger child played with his sister. "Sasuke. Apologize to Inuzuka-chan."

Sasuke's eyes fill with shocked tears. "Otou-san..." It's the precursor of a temper tantrum, and there will be no stopping him now for hours. He'd been too harsh.

Inuzuka Hana gets up and walks around the table to pick Sasuke up in her arms. "No it's okay, Sasuke-chan. I don't mind, but..." And then she leans in to mock whisper in his ear. "Maybe we should only play this game when your Otou-san isn't looking?"

And Sasuke stops. Just, stops looking as though he's about to cry, and giggles instead.

 _I've misjudged._ He thinks. _She is still very much an Inuzuka._

* * *

Later that night, after Inuzuka Hana has left the district following a tan dog, and the boys had gone inside to read or back to bed, he and Mikoto sit out on the porch, her head on his shoulder.

"She's good for Itachi." Mikoto whispers, lacing her fingers with his. "I want to call her daughter, Fugaku, and you will not get in my way."

"She will be an heiress." He counters gently. "No matter how the Inuzuka want to spin it at the moment, she is Tsume's daughter, so she will be their heiress." _My natural romantic, this is not the time for your matchmaking._ "The Inuzuka will not consent to give her to Itachi."

Mikoto pulls back. "She is the only girl who Itachi cares much for at all." She wants him to offer a bid anyway.

"Itachi is much too young to be considering such things." He responds, and he hopes that they can leave it at that. He might have misjudged Inuzuka Hana, but there is no reason for him to tie _Itachi_ to her forever simply because of Mikoto's current whim.

"You and I were arranged long before that." Mikoto observes, watching as more and more stars dusted the sky.

"We were meant." Unspoken goes the thought that the Inuzuka could be stubborn when they want to be, and that Tsume's own thoughts on love and marriage have nothing to do with arrangement.

And then their peace and quiet is broken by the garden gate slamming against the stone wall. Tsume clatters into their yard, arms crossed over her chest, Kuromaru snapping at her heels, lightning in her dark eyes.

She's before him in half an instant. "Where is my daughter, _Fugaku?_ " She hisses through clenched teeth. Her fangs glint sharply in the fading light.

"Your daughter left." He responds. "She has not yet returned."

Her lips pull tight across her teeth. The snarl on her lips makes her look half feral, and from beside her, Kuromaru growls angrily. "If I find one hair on her head injured, I'll raze this place to the ground."

"Tsume-chan." Mikoto begins, "We really don't know-"

Fugaku interrupts. "It is not my job to know where your daughter went, Tsume."

The hunting smile Tsume turns on him is deadlier than any other that he's seen from her. "I trusted you, you know." She remarks her voice freezing. "To let her come here. But I should have remembered that you were shit at protecting people anyway."

The dig at him about Kouga's death makes his eyes bleed red. "Say that again, Tsume- _chan, and remember that your track record is no better."_

The Uchiha rumors said that she'd been the cause of both her teammate's deaths even though she'd grieved them for two straight years. The Inuzuka rumors said that he'd killed Kouga to get these eyes that he never used. The both were equally bad.

"Yeah?" She tilts her head back to him, arrogance in every line of her frame. "At least I can look myself in the mirror."

"At least I never married a man to prove that I was just as good as my sister." He snaps back. He's tired. Tired of every reminder there has been of Iwa no Kaito. Tired of her barbs and accusations when _her_ child's the one that ran off without warning.

Mikoto sets her hand on his arm. "He didn't mean that, Tsume-chan. Everyone knows that you married because-" _Because you loved him._

"Oh shut the fuck up." Tsume snarls. "Kuromaru, we're hunting." And both woman and dog vanishes out the garden gate.

Something like bone deep weariness drags him back into the house. He'd never been close to Inuzuka Tsume, their barbs ran deep and wound about, but it's also never been this bad before.

* * *

"And what is the purpose of your visit?" He'd only stepped out of his office for a breath of fresh air, but he's now easily able to hear Inabi's conversation with someone at the mission desk.

Someone whose sharp voice sounds a lot like...Inuzuka Hana. "That's a personal matter, Uchiha-san. Anyway, if you are unwilling to help me, I can always tell him later." If she's speaking to Inabi, there are fairly few people that she could be looking for. It is most likely himself.

Inabi straightens up. "Now, little dog girl, Fugaku-sama is actually busy so-"

"That's enough Inabi." Fugaku steps out from the hallway. He might not find Inuzuka Hana a comforting presence, but she's not to be treated so terribly.

She's holding flowers. Purple Hyacinths.

He wonders if she knows how ironic it is that she comes bearing flowers that mean apologies.

He gestures briefly for her to follow him, and heads back to his office.

* * *

She sets the vase down on the edge of his desk, a small distance from his extensive paperwork.

He raises an eyebrow at her. _I would like an explanation Inuzuka-chan._

"I'll move it later if you'd like, Fugaku-san, but I do apologize for leaving in a hurry yesterday." It seems that his very presence bothers her enough that she continues. "And for Kaa-san's outburst."

"Do you even know what Tsume said?" He has a feeling that she doesn't know what her Kaa-san had said. He reminds himself that she is merely a little girl, that she knows nothing of her own personal history.

He should not have expected that she be something that she is clearly not.

She straightens her shoulders. "I know my Kaa-san well enough, Fugaku-san. I've lived with her all my life, you know." She pauses here a moment, and frowns. "I'm well aware that she can be both impulsive and unkind." An honest assessment of her Kaa-san's faults.

 _Not all honesty is wild._ He reflects. _Sometimes, honesty is merely an acknowledgment of flaws._

He ought to stop expecting her to be someone who she is not.

"So you bring me flowers." He wants to ask her if she understands that they are apology flowers, if she knows how ironic it is that she would bring flowers given that they are her namesake, but something prevents him.

"Would you like me to bring them home, instead?" She asks, reaching for them.

He moves them next to the photograph on his desk. _Kosshi...Kouga...you would both smack me upside the head for something so stupid as last night wouldn't you?_ "No, you can leave them here." Kosshi hadn't lived the last few years of her life concerned about her imouto's children for him to dismiss her niece because the girl didn't act the way he expected her to.

"Have a good afternoon Fugaku-san." Inuzuka Hana bows deeply, and rises to leave.

"Inuzuka-chan?" There's so much he wants to ask her, but then he remembers that she knows nothing of Kouga, that Kouga had died before she was born, and that Kosshi had hardly been a _large_ presence in the lives of her sister's children. "Never mind. Carry on."

Inuzuka-chan disappears out the door.

* * *

2\. Pink Roses and Rue (Gratitude and Remorse)

* * *

Itachi comes home slightly disgruntled one evening soon after. "Tou-san?" He stands before his father's desk, shifting slightly from one foot to the other.

Fugaku sets his paper down. "Yes?"

There's no need to say more. If his son wants to say something, he'd say it given enough time. If he had nothing important to ask, then he wouldn't.

"Do you not like Hana-chan very much anymore?"

Fugaku blinks, and remembers that autumn morning, when he'd been amused by Tsume's actions, when he'd thought perhaps that Itachi could be friends with the little girl who laughed so freely, that it would be good for him.

In that world the name Uchiha was more a blessing than a curse.

Before the Kyuubi, the vicious rumors and the lies, when the world was a cleaner one, and he'd thought it would be an amusing anecdote to share with Kosshi over dango.

Look at the cycle of friendship repeating itself, he'd say.

And she'd laugh and bare her teeth at him in mock horror.

"No." He sighs. "Inuzuka-chan was merely unexpected." It is unfair to penalize his son's friend.

"Then," Itachi mumbles, looking down at his feet. "Why did she say that you didn't accept her apology?"

But-he had...accepted her apology. "I would not know." Fugaku frowns, and sets his papers aside for the time being.

Itachi vanishes out the door on a quest for something or other else, and Fugaku tries to remember if he's actually _said_ that he accepted her apology.

He comes to the conclusion that he had taken her flowers, her ironic purple apology flowers, but he had _not_ said that he accepted. _Must I say?_

Clearly, she'd misinterpreted because he had not said.

She'd started with flowers. He will return with flowers.

* * *

The irony of his own situation is not lost on him. _I once won the loyalty of an Inuzuka Heiress by offering her violets._

But he's not here for violets today, nor is he here for loyalty.

"Fugaku?" Inoichi straightens, and rinses his hands with a quick water jutsu. "Is there something I can get you?"

"Pink roses." He hesitates before the next words, because they are not ones he likes to say. "And rue."

 _I have an apology of my own to offer._ He muses. He might not be able to offer her honesty, but he can offer her gratitude for befriending Itachi, and rue that he'd misjudged and then misled her.

Inoichi looks as though he wants very badly to open his mouth and ask a question, but Fugaku draws his eyebrows together in his darkest glare, and the other man says nothing.

Sitting across from Yamanaka Inoichi at Council meetings every month is reminder enough most days, of how everything had fallen apart and died somewhere between the Kusa border and Konoha's destruction the night of the Kyuubi.

He does not want the village gossip to start more wild rumors about the state of affairs inside his district. The man might mean it kindly, but even the kindest intentions are grating at times.

* * *

Team Ensui is attacked, and Nara Ensui and his Hyuga student wind up in the hospital. But somewhere between his rapidly pounding heart, and Mikoto's hand in his, they find Itachi, shaken, but physically unharmed.

Two weeks after, Itachi's entire team agrees to show up for dinner, and he expects that they will attend instead of thinking that they will not simply to spite him. Clearly, Nara Ensui's team is nothing if not unexpected.

According to Itachi's story, Nara Ensui had put himself between the masked sharingan wielding attacker and his students, and Inuzuka Hana had shoved herself between her sensei, and a naked blade.

It sounds like such an _Inuzuka_ thing to do. It is the same wild loyalty that reminds him of Kouga- _Well she's my niece, ya know. We like ta keep our traits in the family-_ and his rue is no longer grudging, but easily offered.

He makes sure to find Inuzuka Hana before dinner. "Inuzuka-chan."

She blinks, her eyes large and dark against her face. "Fugaku-san?"

Being confronted with such a familiar set of facial features in such a different manner is disconcerting at best. "Itachi tells me that you did not think I accepted your apology." He offers her his choice. "I assume you know what these mean." Perhaps it's bad that he assumes this, but judging by the expression of surprise on her face, he believes he guessed correctly.

She accepts them, small fingers curling around the stems gently. "Yes, Fugaku-san." She says equally lightly. "Sensei's wife was a Yamanaka at birth. I understand." So she'd known then, that she'd been offering him flowers that meant apology.

And that he is offering her gratitude and rue.

"Good." He takes them from her, and threads a few of the blossoms through her hair. "You'll need your hands to eat." She looks puzzled, and the memories threaten to drown him. _She knows nothing._ A small part of his mind argues. _And it is unfair that you expect her to know your history._ He lets his hands fall to his sides. He turns and begins to head towards the kitchen. "We should go to dinner then, Inuzuka-chan." It is cowardly to run from little girls, but it's been a long time since he's had to speak to one.

It's been a long time since his hands have acted without any conscious thought paid to their actions.

"Wait! Fugaku-san?" Her frantic plea forces him to turn back around.

He waits for her to speak, and she's staring at her feet, hands twisting about themselves in...was that _nervousness?_

Somewhere between impressions he's come to the conclusion that she is really just nervous, that speaking to him makes her different from her normal self, that she is hesitant and absurdly soft-spoken unless prodded before him because she doesn't know _what_ to say.

Itachi didn't find her duplicitous or overly formal. She only adhered to every social convention when she stood before him.

She finds him uncomfortable. She thinks that he requires her excessive word mincing.

The thought is discomfits him, but he doubts that she would find it any less uncomfortable if he were to order her to stop.

"I wanted to know. That is I mean." She fumbles with her words, looking down at the floor, and he can forgive her nervous habits. "What I meant to say." _She hides behind polite behavior when she is uncomfortable. I see._ "Is that I'm thinking of applying for a position in the Military Police Force after I make chunin."

And he short circuits for a moment. _She wants to-_ He raises an eyebrow. _Have I heard you properly Inuzuka-chan? You want to work for a man who you can't speak two sentences to?_

"I wondered if you would consider it." She finishes. She doesn't ask if she has a chance, she doesn't assume that he'd let her in.

 _I wondered if you would consider it._ It is a mild statement. He wonders how many times her father-no. _She is not her father._ He decides. _Inuzuka Hana is herself._

"I would consider it." He turns around again. "Make chunin first, Inuzuka-chan."

He has another few years before he needs to consider this topic in truth.

Perhaps her plans would change.

"Thank you, Fugaku-san." Her voice is still quiet, but her gratitude is clear and absolute.

 _She probably won't change her mind._

* * *

3\. Daffodils, White Anemones, and Bluebells. (Respect, Sincerity, and Thankfulness)

* * *

His eldest son goes off to Iwa, for the most dangerous chunin exams on rotation. He'd wondered what the Nara had been thinking, but then he'd gotten the short, terse message that this primarily had to do with political finagling, and the Nara himself had little hand in the matter. He dislikes his child being used as a chess piece, but he dislikes the idea of pulling Itachi away from the team that he so adores even more.

 _It is hard to remember that he is merely nine years old. A child still. A child who should have friends, and play, and laugh._

But this will doom his eldest child even so. Passing or failing, Itachi will no longer be a child. With a heavy heart, and aching eyes, he signs the slip, and lets his son go, but before he does, he welcomes Inuzuka Hana back to his house for dinner.

"Hello, Fugaku-san. Mikoto-san." She bows, a hand on her little brother's hair, pushing him down as well.

"Neechan!" He wriggles and resists. "Kaa-san says we shouldn't have to bow to _anyone._ Why're you doing it left and right?"

Fugaku blinks. _Clearly, one of Tsume's children acts much more like his relatives._

"Kiba-chan..." Inuzuka-chan sighs. "A bow is a symbol of respect, and while we don't have to respect anyone at home because we're all of us equal at home, we are not at home right now Kiba-chan." She kneels down to look her brother in the eye. "We're in the Uchiha District. While we're here we should follow their rules."

 _Is that what she'd been trying to do? Follow our rules, as though we would not forgive her if she used her own here?_

So perhaps after the first meeting she'd no longer been nervous, but she'd been trying to act in a manner that pleased her hosts.

Kiba frowns. "That's weird. We aren't them."

"We would like them to respect our rules when they visit our home." She ruffles his hair. "You wouldn't like it if everyone bowed to you, right? They like it the other way around."

"I still think it's weird." Her little brother seems to be considering her words. "But if that's the way they like it here." He copies her bow, sloppy and unpracticed, but with a gracious dose of heart. "Hello Fugaku-san. Mikoto-san." He parrots the phrase expertly, but grimaces at the end. Then he straightens up and beams up at Fugaku, who suddenly finds that these memories are thicker when confronted by a pair of wide, earth brown eyes that in the light of the sun, shines with flecks of pale gold. "We can be friends now!"

The boy bounces forwards towards him, and Fugaku is frozen. "What's it like to be a Tou-san?" He has a little boy idly playing with his hands, tracing the lines on his palms, and casually flipping them over to draw patterns with small fingers on the back.

He raises his eyes to Mikoto. _What am I supposed to do?_

She covers her mouth with a wide sleeve, _Whatever you'd like, Anata_ and walks away, leaving him to his fate.

"Why do you ask, Inuzuka-kun?" He clears his throat discretely, and wonders at how casually this little boy seemed to interact with everyone around him. _So much like the uncle you never met. Nothing like the father that you-_ And he suddenly remembers that Iwa no Kaito had died before Inuzuka Kiba's birth. _That you...also, never met._

Kiba frowns. "I'm Kiba, not Inuzuka-kun." But his next words are measured, careful, thoughtful."Don't have a Tou-san. Wondered what it was like."

"I'm sure." From what he remembered of the man, Iwa no Kaito loved his daughter with passion. _They'd been close._ "That your Tou-san." A pause stretches into the air. "Is very proud of you and your sister, Kiba-kun. As I am proud of my sons." He doesn't mean to say the last phrase, but it pops out of his mouth without warning. _I would think that your father would love you as dearly as he loved your sister._

"You think so?" Kiba considers it. "You're actually very nice, Fugaku-san." And he is again, a beaming little boy, with a wild, fanged smile. "That's what Neechan meant by different people are similar too!" He races off towards the living room. "Hey, hey, stupid Sasuke! Are you a nice person too?"

"I'm sorry, Fugaku-san." Inuzuka Hana is looking down at her feet again. "Kiba-chan is very...Inuzuka, and he and Sasuke-chan have been having a bit of a disagreement lately."

 _Calling your brother merely very Inuzuka is a great disservice to his temperament._ "I see why you love him." She'd said that she loved her brother best, of all the people in the world, and the way Inuzuka Kiba had bounced over the doorstep holding his sister's hand had said it all. "He is a very bright boy." _As bright as Kouga ever was. Perhaps brighter._

"Kiba is more than bright." She counters. "Kiba is the sun and the clouds and the sky in all its weathers." She laughs, a little a fond light in her eyes as she stares in the direction that her brother had disappeared in. "You haven't seen him angry yet. He can throw quite the tantrum when he does not get his way."

 _I can well imagine._

* * *

The three of them, Sasuke, Mikoto, and himself, see Itachi off at the door later that week.

"I hope they'll be alright." Mikoto murmurs, and her worry is an echo of his own, but he does not voice it.

"He will be fine." There's more work down at the station calling his name. He heads past the garden gate.

"Anata!" He turns to find Mikoto racing after him, a bento clutched in her hand. "Anata! You forgot again." She holds it out to him, a small pout on her lips but unabashed fondness in her eyes, and he smiles.

"I have you to remember." And that is when he truly leaves.

* * *

"Taicho?" Kagen's the one that's stopped him. "You might want to-" The older man gestures to his eyes, and he remembers that his sharingan is still active.

Fugaku tilts his head towards his clansman in acknowledgement. "It's bad then?" He asks, as he stops before the case room door.

"Well, it's not something I'd like to see forever." Kagen shakes his head. "This is the fourth girl murdered down in Yoshiwara this week."

"Raped and murdered." He corrects. _Never forget the true face of crime._ He sighs to himself, and makes sure to withdraw for a moment, before he steps through the door. He closes his eyes, and breathes out.

When he steps through the door, his sharingan is still active. _I will not turn away._

* * *

He pulls back the sheet, forty shades of angry and three shades of sick to his stomach. Death from violent crime no longer scares him, no longer truly haunts his dreams at night like it did when he was younger, but the sickening sweet stench of it remains stomach turning, sickening, gruesome, all the same.

The girl on the case room table's no more than fifteen years old, dark hair, pointed chin. Her makeup is splattered with blood.

And according to the brief he'd read, stabbed twenty times in the abdomen with a samurai's tanto and left to bleed out in the back room of a brothel.

Inabi's team had been the one to bring her in, take her measurements, and surmise that it'd been a noble doing the murdering. Any ninja worth their salt would have just slit the girl's throat.

She's young. Fugaku notes, clinically, because he's not allowed to make judgements about the scene, only to take in the facts in minute detail, but-

She still has her neck and face powdered white, still has cheap earrings on. Her hair would have been done up, big and pretty, though it's a tangled mess now, though the bamboo pins remain. Her jewelry remains as well, bangles on her wrists, a fake pearl necklace about her neck. Her kimono is bright, colorful, embroidered with cranes, and ripped through the center, the obi torn to shreds.

He tries very hard to not think of the irony, that cranes, so often a symbol of marriage would find their way into becoming her funeral wear.

She'd not expected to die last night. He notes the torn and jagged edges of her nails, notes the bruising on her neck, notes that she'd died, angry and defiant, notes that twenty- _one_ times was too much to stab her for a normal man and that anger didn't go this far, this was sport, and slides the sheet back over her.

He writes the rest of his findings down, detailing more wound analysis, how they might find the perpetrator's flesh and blood under what remains of her nails, and that the motivations for her death are murkier than they should expect and leaves it at that.

 _Raped and murdered._

 _She's one of many._

She didn't even have a name, but he had seen her now. He wouldn't forget that this is another citizen of Konoha who would never receive justice unless he wins his case with the Hokage's council, until the nobility is tried for their crimes.

Another citizen of Konoha who would never grow old. He files her away, next to her sisters and her brothers. _You will have your justice, I promise you._

The hall sways as he steps outside, the clean air more acrid to his lungs than the stench of death.

He goes home quiet that night.

* * *

And Sasuke, shy, quiet Sasuke, makes a friend from outside the clan at the park. Fugaku pauses outside of the kitchen, in the doorway, to watch the idyllic scene.

He activates his sharingan just briefly, for the barest of moments. Some things, he would like to keep forever, not for their utility, but simply for the sake of memory.

"He was mean before." His younger son says, as he swings his feet back and forth on a chair next to Mikoto. He's helping her with the household chores again, holding the peeled daikon. "But Kiba's not bad."

"Oh?" Mikoto pulls a shred of daikon skin from the peeler, and nods. "Kiba-kun is...Hana-chan's otouto?"

Sasuke shrugs. "I dunno who his neechan is." But then he pouts, chewing on his lower lip, a frustrating habit that really ought to be controlled. "He thinks his Neechan's better than Niichan, but that's dumb."

Mikoto laughs, and pinches his cheek. "I'm sure Kiba-kun has his reasons for liking his own sister."

"Kaa-san!" Sasuke laughs.

Mikoto raises her eyes to his. "Welcome home, Anata."

Sasuke falls quiet for a moment, as if he's considering something, and perks up a moment later. "Welcome home, Tou-san!"

Fugaku taps two fingers on his son's shoulder, before sinking to a rest in a chair by the kitchen table. His eyes seek and find Mikoto's. _Another death._

 _I am sorry._ She answers. "Sasuke-chan." She says with a smile. "Maybe you should go and play with Yoshi some more, alright? I'll call you if I need a helper."

Sasuke frowns, but sets the daikon in a plate on the table, and heads off, his footsteps clattering loudly on the wooden floors.

"It was a bad day?" Mikoto observes as she deftly finishes the last daikon.

Fugaku hands her the kitchen knife on the other side of the table, where it had been placed far away from Sasuke's grasping fingers, and she smiles at him. "I believe that you do the best you can, Anata."

"Sometimes." He begins, and then pauses. "The best I can is not enough."

She sets a hand against his cheek. "But it is all you can do."

They're not really speaking about the murder anymore, not the girl, not the deaths, not the misery, but of something far deeper, of the rot that spreads like plague, of the lies and bitterness all around them.

He is not a talker, he knows. He is not a political figure. He doesn't like to play games, and that is damaging, but more so, is that he does not _know how_ to play even if he wants to.

He'd never learned.

He sighs. _Otou-san had done better._ Uchiha Ryosuke had been everyone's friend. When he'd been clan head-the Uchiha position had always done well under him.

"I ought to finish the clan dossier." He murmurs, brushing his lips against her fingers lightly.

"Remember that we have that appointment with Tadahiko-kun and Rumi-chan tonight." Mikoto calls after him. "The baby's arriving soon, and Tadahiko-kun has always thought of you as a father."

He raises a hand to show that he's heard, and keeps going. _A father?_

His mind turns back to Itachi, still in Iwa, and to the team his son has by his side. _Be safe._

* * *

Itachi comes home, on an August morning, his step slow and unsure. "NIICHAN!" Sasuke launches himself at his elder brother the moment Itachi makes it past the garden gate. Fugaku stays back, with Mikoto, because Sasuke had been so tired of waiting for his brother.

Even with a new friend, Sasuke still cares for Itachi most.

"Sasuke." Itachi says quietly, tiredly, painfully, and it's clear that something is very wrong.

"Niichan?" Sasuke pulls back, blinking, and Itachi does not raise his hand to tap two fingers against his younger brother's forehead.

"'M sorry." Itachi mumbles, and continues on towards the house. "Tired."

Sasuke turns, and regards Itachi's retreating form for a long moment, but it's right then that a blur of color passes the garden gate. "Sasuke!"

It's Inuzuka Kiba. His hair is windswept, and his round cheeks are red with exertion. "There are new puppies!" But a moment later, he's frowning at the still retreating Itachi. "Neechan's team is home?" He whispers, something wild dancing in his eyes.

He grabs Sasuke by the wrist and tugs him towards the garden gate. "Come on! We have to go see Neechan!" Only then does he raise his eyes for a moment, smiling brightly at Mikoto and Fugaku. "Hey! Fuga-san, Miko-san, Sasuke can come back later, right?"

Were it any other little boy shortening his name, it would be a discomfort, but there is a dashing air of charisma around Inuzuka Kiba, and Fugaku can't find it in himself to mind. "Yes." He agrees, and taps the shoulders of each boy once before turning to head in to search for his elder son. "Sasuke can come back later."

* * *

He finds Itachi curled up in a ball on a chair in the master bedroom. There is something very badly wrong, but Fugaku is patient enough to wait for Itachi to begin.

He does not expect his son to simply say nothing, and raise red, red eyes to his own. "Who?" He asks, going over Itachi's list of friends carefully. _He is only nine. Kami, only nine and a few months. There's no reason for him to have lost-_ There is no way that his cautious elder son made a friend for life in Iwa, and there have been no recent deaths-unless, and here, suddenly, a heavy coil of metal sinks to the bottom of his gut. _Unless a member of his team died out there, among the rocks._

He suspects he knows who it is.

"Hana." Itachi whispers, and shudders. "It was Hana."

The room suddenly sways just a little before him. Kiba had looked forward to seeing his sister again, had cheered and sung and dragged _Sasuke_ with him. "Inuzuka Hana is dead?" He asks, the words ringing out in the room. _Tsume._

 _The Inuzuka would be out for the council's blood for this._

Itachi rocks back and forth. "No." He takes a shaky breath, and almost sobs. "But I killed her _twice._ "

Bit by bit, the agonizing story comes out. Bit by bit, pieces click together. Bit by bit, every horror that his son's experienced over the past month is engraved on his heart.

When Itachi crawls into his lap, and sobs like he is three years old again, Fugaku lets him be, a hand tangled in Itachi's hair. _I should not have let you go._

 _Forgive me._

* * *

"Fugaku-san?" Inuzuka Hana steps over the threshold of his study, very much alive, later that night, holding a bouquet of flowers before her like a shield. Like she's expecting something bad.

Fugaku sets his papers down. He hadn't been able to figure out if he really ought to raise a fuss over the land distribution or the idea that a younger clansman couldn't find a rental apartment in the city anyway. It has not been a good day overall.

His only good news is that Itachi survived Iwa, and now, he's curled up in a ball somewhere inside his own house.

"And are you willing to tell me what those mean?" There are three types of flowers that he can see in her bouquet, yellow daffodils, anemones, and bluebells.

They all have more than one connotation. He's willing to let her explain herself.

"Daffodils for respect." She says, sliding them into the vase at the edge of his desk. _Respect?_ He had not thought, but perhaps she does respect him enough to do what she thought pleased him most. She knew he understood flowers, and that he did not like to talk.

She brought him flowers still. "White anemones for sincerity." The little white flowers go into the vase as well. "And bluebells for thankfulness."

He stops her. "Why?" _What are you thankful for, Inuzuka-chan?_

"No one died. I am thankful that we are all still alive." And it is Itachi that she is thankful for then, for neither she nor her Hyuga teammate suffered any life threatening injuries. The green of her chunin flak jacket meant much more now.

He slides the bluebells into the vase himself. "A good choice." Her face is more angular now, he notes. It is hollow and pinched, as if she had lost weight. It is most likely the stress of exams, but from Itachi's stories-he does not blame her. "Itachi has gained the next stage of his sharingan." He says at last.

"I see." He could assume that she is deflecting again, but the way her lips are pulled tight says otherwise.

"You have questions." He folds his hands together on his desk, and glances again at her flowers. _Respect. Sincerity. Thankfulness. Itachi made it home alive._ "Ask."

"Is Itachi going to be okay?" He doesn't have time to respond to her, she continues as if something had been set loose, and the deluge just kept on pouring. "I mean, his eyes started bleeding and then Sensei had to-and then he's been weird all the way home." She's staring at her feet again.

 _She has a good heart._ Her thankfulness had been for lives, not chunin vests or recognition. _And she means what she says._

Fugaku tilts her head up with a finger so that he can see her eyes again. "Itachi shall be fine." And he sees the wild relief on her features, the way that tension drains from her body. "He cares for you a good deal." He adds. _He finds you precious, and perhaps I can understand why._

"Why?" She asks, confusion swirling.

The corners of Fugaku's mouth tighten. _You do not know?_ And it seems, that for all her quiet backbone, Inuzuka Hana does not find herself important in the lives of others, for she has so easily overlooked her own impact on Itachi so as to not even know the extent of his care. _Have you not seen how Itachi brightens in your presence? How he looks forward to each night that you come to dinner, how he spoke about you often throughout his years in the academy?_

 _You are asking me why he cares for you?_

She looks no less confused. _You truly do not know._ "You are a unique individual." _And you ought to learn that, if you do not already know._ Fugaku rises and heads towards the door. "He will explain." He cannot explain for his son, what Inuzuka Hana really means.

He just hopes that Itachi is actually capable of explaining.

* * *

During dinner, he remembers the promise that he'd made a year ago. He'd said that he'd consider her application for the Military Police.

It is only now that he remembers that he had not actually spoken to anyone in the Force about it. Only now that he remembers that Inuzuka Hana is very much merely nine years old. _The Force is not ready to accept her yet. She looks too young despite having earned her chunin vest._

The thought of her working down at the station is somehow more palatable than merely a year ago.

He can't accept her yet, but he'd made her a promise, and he doesn't intend to break it. "A moment, Inuzuka-chan."

She turns back to him, a hand fidgeting with the hem of her chunin vest. The sight only sparks a fond amusement in him. It is difficult to get used to the heavy weight of the vest, but she should stop within a month or so. "Yes?" She asks.

"Give your application a year before turning one in. I did not expect your promotion so quickly." She looks confused again, and yes, she has right to be confused."The clan would resist." He adds. It is not exactly that, but it is close enough, and it would take more words to explain rather than simply just letting it be.

She bows forward until her hair sweeps over her shoulder, and she passes the proper angle that she ought to give someone of his rank. She's bowing too low for a clan head. "Thank you very much, Fugaku-san."

The gratitude in her voice soothes him, slightly. "Hn." He pushes her shoulder up, so that she is upright once more. "Speak to Itachi." He reminds her before he turns to go. _And Itachi will tell you why he finds you important, and you learn to be a little more confident in yourself, yes?_

* * *

4\. Jasmines and Violets (Grace and Honesty)

* * *

Inuzuka Hana is officially declared an Heiress in the light of the new year. He tries very hard to not remember that he'd insulted Kosshi at the same event in her life, but the thought of it renders him half mute.

Mikoto has no such compunctions. "Oh, look at you, Hana-chan!" She spins Hana around careful to not topple or unbalance her. "You look so cute today." She turns back to him. "Doesn't Hana-chan look especially pretty?"

"It must be the day that the Inuzuka announce a new heiress." Whatever else he wants to say is lost in his throat. _Kosshi._ He thinks. _Have you found Kouga in the pure land yet?_

"Anata..." Mikoto straightens to prod his shoulder and set a hand on her hip. "Won't you ever learn to compliment a pretty girl on her coming of age day?" She knows the story. She'd heard it from Kosshi herself.

He frowns, imperceptibly. "You have never complained." It's not entirely about whether or not he compliments Mikoto, but it is easier to say.

"I know you, anata." She winks at him, and smiles down at the Inuzuka Heiress. "Don't you worry, Hana-chan. He thinks you're very pretty today."

It is not what he'd been thinking about, but he can acknowledge that the deep red of the furisode brings out the red of her cheeks, that the golden chrysanthemum brings out the gold in her eyes, and that her happy smile does make her pretty.

She smiles, and bows. "Thank you both for the compliments, Fugaku-san, Mikoto-san."

It is only after she leaves that he turns back to Mikoto. "I was right." He murmurs. "They made her an heiress."

But somewhere, he'd gotten used to the idea that Itachi _needed_ his friendship with Hana.

"And now she won't ever be Itachi's bride." Mikoto sighs. "You were right as always, Anata."

"You wanted her to be your daughter?" He glances over at Mikoto, sees her downcast eyes, and his heart hurts. There are few things that he cannot bear.

Mikoto truly disappointed is one of them, and he acknowledges that Inuzuka Hana would hardly have been the worst daughter in law.

"Itachi loves her." Mikoto murmurs. "And she is...she has the Inuzuka charm." She answers, her head against his shoulder. "It is subtler than Kiba-chan's, but it is there."

There's no point in asking if Itachi truly loves her. It's clear that he does, but is it the type of love to build a marriage from? "Is it the right love?" Fugaku asks. "Itachi calls her his teammate."

"And teammates have been lovers." Mikoto counters.

But he thinks back to the words Itachi had sobbed in his lap. _He'd called her 'dearest.'_

 _That._ He realizes, very suddenly. _That is how Itachi refers to Sasuke._

And that is a very different kettle of fish than a marriage offer. How does he make it so that Mikoto may call her daughter, but Itachi may call her sister instead?

* * *

Hana comes to visit him at the station a few months later, again, trailing flowers in her wake.

He looks up as she steps through his door. "Explanation?" But then he truly looks at the flowers she's holding, and suddenly the memories come back to drown him.

 _What does she want that has to be spoken with tho-She doesn't know._

 _And I have not told her. So she will keep doing this._

"Jasmines for friendliness and violets for honesty." She slides them into the small vase at the edge of his desk.

And he would not mind, would not mind, but-not jasmine. Not violets. A thousand years would still be too soon for those two flowers to ever grace his table. A wedding.

A broken chain among the rubble. Blood in the street. A man's screams as he burned. He swallows, hard.

"Fugaku-san? Is there something wrong with the flowers?"

He blinks. And his cursed tongue tells her that there is nothing wrong, and trips right on into a slight explanation. "It was merely disconcerting." He gestures towards a chair. "Sit, Inuzuka-chan."

She hands over an application for the Military Police force. "I hope you can forgive my impatience, Fugaku-san."

Fugaku snorts. "This is not what you came for this time." _You wouldn't come here early for this. You would not offer friendliness and honesty for something like this._

 _I have already offered you a position here._

She sets several other scrolls on his desk. "This is what I'm here for. I wanted to ask for help as to how I should go about meeting the Civilian Council."

He unrolls the first scroll. She's sketched...building plans. For the ninth district. For Yoshiwara. And by her impressive marginal notes, she's spent some time on this. "Where did you get this interest in the ninth district?" _And why do you think that I can help you?_

"From you, Fugaku-san." Her quiet admission shakes him to the core.

 _Me._

He sets the scroll down. "The Civilian Council has not cared about poverty for many years." He rises to stand at the window, where the sun sets down the street, lights dancing on the water of the Naka River. "I expect that they never will."

She comes to stand beside him. "Why doesn't Hokage-sama want to speak to you about this then?" She asks, and it seems that she is no longer afraid of speaking bluntly before him.

His eyes slide closed. _Why indeed._ "Hokage-sama does not believe in the Uchiha." He says at last, his grip tightening on the window answers her honesty with honesty, matching her truth for truth. "And he has not for some time." He turns back to his desk and drops her application in the top drawer. "You may expect to start work next month."

"Thank you, Fugaku-san." She smiles before she goes, but she leaves the flowers behind.

And he will get nothing done today, because the photograph combined with those flowers...

He slides the glass panel off of the back of the frame, and pulls out the smaller half picture behind it. Jasmines and violets.

Three friends. A wedding.

And now there is only him. Only him and this quiet room filled with the violence of solitude.

* * *

5\. The Uchiwa (Father and Daughter)

* * *

He approaches Tsume a few weeks after, ducking into the bar that she's frequenting. She's sitting on a bar stool, a shot glass in hand. "Tsume." They had not really apologized to each other, not for last time, even though her daughter had trailed purple flower petals into his life since.

But then, they never really apologize to each other.

"Yes?" She's not drunk, not even impaired, just swirling the liquor around in the shot glass as though she can divine the mysteries of the world from her own reflection.

"Your daughter." He begins.

She smiles at him, fangs bared. "What about Hana?"

He sits down on the bar stool beside her. "I would like to call her daughter." Her eyes are hooded, cynical, but not angry. He takes it as a good sign. "With your permission."

She laughs, and knocks back the shot glass of tequila like it's water, and slams it onto the counter. "Another." Then she turns back to him. "Excuse me, Fugaku." There's a desperate smile playing on her lips. "I must have misheard you, you want Hana?"

"You didn't." Something in his heart tells him that he shouldn't be tormenting an already tormented woman, but then he remembers Mikoto's downcast eyes. There are few things he would not do for Mikoto. He remembers that Itachi loves Hana much like he loves his own younger brother. There is nothing he would not do for Itachi.

And then he remembers that Inuzuka Hana had shaken him to his core not two weeks before. He _likes_ the girl. _I might even love her._ He realizes suddenly, and almost laughs aloud. _Inuzuka charm in a subtler form indeed._ Inuzuka Hana has snuck up on him, and his unsuspecting heart.

He expects that if he allows her free rein, he'd never have his heart back, but she'd also never abuse his regard.

 _A good-hearted child who is far more sensitive than most of her extended family._ And he can say that he no longer hates Inuzuka Kaito. _Perhaps I only tarred and feathered him-_

 _For Kosshi's peace of mind._

"She has a father." Tsume counters, and knocks back another shot glass. This time she chokes, coughing desperately. "She's just...fine."

Fugaku raises an eyebrow at her. "A gravestone is not a father." He murmurs. "And I am not taking her from you." He isn't speaking of formal adoption, not really, but she will be joining the Military Police, she would wear the Uchiwa, just like any other man or woman in the force.

Anyone who took issue with her presence could take their issues up to him.

"I hate when you make sense." Tsume murmurs, and sips politely from her shot glass. "Hana deserves a _good_ father." She pins him with dark eyes. "She's the only daughter I'll ever have. You better take care of her."

And it seems that Inuzuka Tsume, despite being sharp edges, and hard corners, and angry brashness personified, loves her daughter far too much to deny her a chance at being happy. _She will settle our grudges then, because it would be good for her daughter._

 _My daughter._ He'd not thought of it this way, had not thought that he would ever-

"Don't worry." He rises, this conversation for the most part over. "I will."

* * *

He sees Hatake Kakashi on the same street as the station early the same morning that Hana is supposed to start work. They are talking about something or other; the boy has a grip on her collar, and she reaches up for something, and he promptly drops her. "You're so uncute, Hana-chan."

And that bothers Fugaku, but he has no idea what relationship his Hana has with the Hatake boy, who is eight or so years her senior. At least she doesn't seem afraid of him.

He settles for loudly clearing his throat. "Hatake."

Hatake looks...guilty. "Maa...Fugaku-san!" He chirps. "I didn't know you came to this part of the city!"

Hana rolls her eyes. "We are literally just outside the police station, Kakashi." She reaches out for the Hatake boy's collar so casually that they have to be at least close friends. "This is Fugaku-san's _daily workplace._ Of course, he's here all the time!"

Fugaku's glare darkens slightly. _How does she know him?_

Hatake wiggles free of her grip, and moves arm's length away from her.

He clears his throat again. "Inuzuka-chan. My office. Now."

* * *

"Fugaku-san?" She sounds worried, and that concerns him. _There is no reason for her to be worried._

 _What does she have to worry about?_

"Taicho. When we are at the station, you ought to call me Taicho." And that's his accursed tongue again. He doesn't actually want her to call him Taicho except in public, but does he explain this to her? Not really.

She bows. "Yes, of course, Taicho."

He pushes her shoulder up, so that she is upright again. "Here." He offers her the package that he'd chosen. "Your uniform."

"Thank you." She pulls the shirt out of the brown paper and blinks. "Taicho?"

He inclines his head in her direction. _Yes?_

"There is," She turns the left sleeve towards him. "An Uchiwa on this shirt."

He cannot identify the emotion in her voice, and it's only now that he thinks that she might refuse. She has every right to. She has every right to not particularly wish to associate herself even further with the Uchiha.

She has every right to-but the thought hurts all the same.

"I just wanted to ask," There's a hitch in her voice, a hint of a plea. "If you meant it. If you-" And he understands what she'd been concerned about now.

 _She thought that I forgot._

 _She thought that I didn't mean it. That I was baiting her._

 _That she would think me so cruel-_ but she did not know until Itachi told her, that she held a place in his heart.

She had not assumed that he accepted her apology until he'd offered her pink roses and rue.

Her modesty is also a curse, because she does not expect things of others.

Of course, her first thought is that he has forgotten about the Uchiwa on the shirt.

"I never do anything that I do not mean." It is best that she knows that now. That this decision is a decision, and it is not something that he conceived of on a whim. He takes the shirt from her and slips it over her head in a single gesture, quick and fluid, sure and absolute. "And I mean exactly what you think I mean, musume." _My daughter._

Her face crumples, but he knows better than to think of rejection this time. "Thank you." She gasps, as she brings her emotions under control.

He hands her a sheet of paper. "You have patrol with Inabi."

She wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her new shirt, and smiles. "Un." It's the brightest he's seen from her.

"Come to dinner tonight, Hana."

She's almost out the door, but she turns back to look at him. "Yes, of course, Chichi." _Father._

"I will look forward to it." And he very much does.

* * *

"A definition NOT found in the dictionary-

Not Leaving: an act of trust and love, often deciphered by children."

-Markus Zusak, _The Book Thief_

* * *

 **A.N.** In many ways, even though this was supposed to be something only about the flowers and Hana, it's also about all of the other things in Fugaku's life. Thus, it is as much the quiet moments he shares with Mikoto, the awkward ways he tries to express how much he loves both of his sons, the friends that he's buried, the political pressures that he faces, and the past that he keeps.

Thank you so much to ManawaSasa, AnimeFreak71777 (:P), Shion Lee, EverBear01 (Well, it's not quite Danzo's offer, but it's a lot of stuff anyway.), Yuki Suou (Chibi!Dei is definitively a cinnamon bun.), Guest One, libraryrockerr, fernandfeather, Cooked Ghost (Thanks for reminding me! I fixed it...hopefully. And Deidara's childhood is in fact, very lonely, but there's a lot the Tsuchikage does for him that we don't get to see from his point of view. Many of these things aren't done from malice, it's just that they're also cruel despite being well intentioned.), and OddShadow (I do primarily keep dialogue and gestures if I've already written a scene, but sometimes the editing does lose some lines. Thanks for reminding me. Deidara will in fact, reappear quite soon.) for reviewing!

And for everyone who favorited and followed.

~Tavina


	12. Stand Down

**I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

"A bird who hurt his wing, now forgotten how to fly.

A song he used to sing, but can't remember why.

A breath he caught and kept, that left him in a sigh

It hurts him so to love you, but he won't say goodbye."

-Lang Leav, _Golden Cage_

* * *

At four years old, Hyuga Koma learns duty when he is brought before the Head of the Branch House in the Branch House dojo. He'd never been before anyone so important before. It leaves him trembling and breathless.

 _A good sort of anxious._ He tells himself, his hand wrapped protectively around his sister's.

"They tell me that you are a little prodigy, you and your sister both." Hyuga Hizashi says, his white eyes expressionless.

Koma takes a breath. "Haya is better than I." He says, and knows that it is true, more than humility, more than honor, he cares for the truth.

"Niichan is my equal." Haya says from his side. That is her truth, her kindness to him. _Thank you, Haya-chan._

"Neither of you deny that you've activated the byakugan?" Hyuga Hizashi leans forwards, towards them, his hands brushing the corners of their eyes, but more than that, just cupping their faces, gently.

They nod as one. "Byakugan." They whisper, veins bulging, space unfurling.

Only then, does he notice the elder sitting behind the screen. _Hizashi-san's Chichi-ue. Hideya-sama is even more important than Hizashi-san._

"You know what you have to do, Hizashi." The elder behind the screen turns on his heel and leaves them, his voice harsh and grating.

A tendril of fear clutches his heart. "What does Hideya-sama mean, Hizashi-san?" Haya asks from beside him.

There's something like sadness in Hizashi-san's eyes. "What I must." He whispers, a hand against each of their foreheads. "You must both be brave, yes?" There's a tightness to his lips that belies the gentle nature of his words.

 _He is not speaking for true. He is asking for something else._ Koma squeezes Haya's hand. "Have courage." He whispers.

"Now, Koma-kun." Hizashi-san moves him forwards. "You'll go first then?"

Koma swallows hard. "Yes, of course."

"Repeat after me." Koma nods. "This is our duty." Hizashi-san picks up the brush beside him, and dips into the ink. "We must protect the Main Branch."

"This is my duty." Koma says, his tongue heavy and dry. "I must protect the Main Branch." It feels as though he should trip over his words, everything is so heavy, but he does not. He does not.

Hizashi-san finishes with the brush, and sets a hand on either temple. "Have courage." He sets the brush between Koma's teeth. "And be careful when you bite down."

The chakra emitted breaks his head open, brings tears to his eyes. It's overcoming his own developing chakra coils, twisting them into new paths, into the seal on his forehead.

He bites down, and does not scream.

The pain continues, on and on and on and on and on. By the time Hizashi-san removes his hands, Koma can no longer feel anything, just pain. He slumps forwards, tears gathering messily in his eyes. "H-Haya." _H-Haya. Not Haya._

And when his sister's scream rises into the still air that winter morning, his heart breaks with it.

That is duty. That is truth. The two pieces of his shattered heart. Pain beyond imagining. He learns it at age four, slumped on the floor of the dojo.

* * *

Hyuga Koma is seven years old when he graduates from the Academy on the same day as his Haya. Not two months later, his little brother is born in the middle of the night, howling, atypical of a Hyuga who must be dutiful and quiet at all times.

He worries for his little brother, for Tokuma, who is only a few hours old. _How will he learn to be dutiful, if he's already so rebellious?_

"He is a strong child." Haya observes, and slides her hand into his own. "He will grow up to be fierce."

 _Perhaps._ He considers. _I dearly hope so._ He squeezes her hand. "Our brother will be the best of us." The words taste like ashes on his tongue. _And when he is four, he will learn his duty._

"Yes." She replies, because Haya is made of infinite hope and good cheer. "We will keep him safe and teach him more."

We will hold him through his suffering. We will shield him with our own bodies. We will teach him to be proud of himself. We will protect him. We will be his brother and his sister. His family for always.

* * *

A year into his career as a genin, he kills his first man. His team is bleeding behind him, and there is an attacker before him.

He cannot run. He cannot hide. He is eight years old, on a C-Rank mission. _I was always a prodigy. I will rise._

Thirty two palms catch the attacker before him in the heart, and blood sprays across the clearing, in the noonday sun. He draws sixty four palms in the air just for safety, breathing lightly. He has trained these katas until his hands bled, until his lungs gave out, not quite able to catch Haya's natural speed.

But he is a genius all the same. Easily capable of killing a man at age eight.

The rest of the bandits flee, but the man he has hit drops like a stone, down into the dusty earth. The cloud of loose dust rises, a yellow film, and blood stains it dark red.

He feels bile rise in his stomach, but he swallows it down. _This is duty as well. Duty to Konoha._

He learned duty to his clan at age four on the dojo floor. He learns duty to Konoha now, in this hot summer clearing, at age eight.

 _I have killed a man._ He thinks, hysteria gripping him. _I have completed my duty to my team._ He justifies. His stomach rolls uneasily as he slides out of the jyuken stance.

"Good job." His teammate claps him on the back. "I knew you could save us." _I did not save us. I did not save you._ He thinks. _I have doomed us all to a lifetime of killing and death._

 _What is this ruin?_

But that is not what prodigies say. "It was what I had to do." He says, the words like tangled plastic strips on his tongue. If he is not careful, he will be trapped. "I couldn't let you die." That is what humility tells him to say, but it is not the truth. He doesn't speak of the truth often these days. He pulls on a small smile, all that is required of a Hyuga, and turns to offer a shoulder to his other teammate.

Their walk back to Konoha is slow, with broken bones and bleeding cuts, but they are all still alive.

For the first time, Hyuga Koma wishes he were dead instead.

* * *

"I hear you killed for the first time." Hizashi-san slides out of his jyuken stance, across from him.

Koma smiles, the action brittle in the morning light. "Have I not been performing well in practice, Hizashi-san?" He's long forgiven the man before him for his part in the pain. _He must also do his duty. That is all. He did not take pleasure from our pain._

"That is not all that makes or breaks you." Hizashi-san sets a hand on his shoulder, and guides him towards the back steps of the dojo. "A first kill is always hard."

"It was the only thing I could do." He says, though he knows in his heart that he will never sleep easily again. "I could not fail."

"Sometimes," Hizashi-san says. "Failure is inevitable. What makes the measure of a man is his ability to accept his failures."

 _Like you accept that we must feel pain. That is your failure._ Koma nods. "I did not have to fail this time." He looks down at his hands- _they ended a man's life yesterday_ -and smiles. "And so I did not fail."

"You may talk to me about anything you'd like." Hizashi-san offers. "I will not tell anyone." _Nor will I judge you._

Koma shakes his head. "There are no inconsistencies I would like to report ,Hizashi-san." He stands, and bows. "Thank you for your time." He does not raise his eyes to meet his teacher's. "I must return to Haha-ue and Chichi-ue to eat breakfast now."

Hizashi-san cups his face with two strong hands, turning his face up so that their eyes meet. "If you ever need someone to talk to, Koma-kun, you may always come to me."

Koma smiles, the first genuine smile he's attempted since the day before. "I will remember, Hizashi-san. Thank you."

Hizashi-san lets him go. "Now eat breakfast. It does no good if our resident prodigy collapses in after breakfast training."

* * *

He walks to the hospital, his heart in his mouth. "Haya?" He whispers as he pushes open the door to her room. "Haya?"

"Niichan." She whispers, and reaches for him. The misery in the air is suffocating, a blanket wrapped too warmly around them both. She has not called him Niichan since they'd both understood duty.

He pulls her into his arms, and knows that whatever had happened to anyone else, he is grateful for Haya's life. _Do not take Haya from me._ He begs. _Do not take her. She who has always been as a part of me as half of my heart._

"Haya-neesan?" Tokuma wanders in before their parents. "Are you alright?" Their little brother has learned to speak properly, without the lisp of a child, but he isn't _conforming._ He laughs too loud, dances in the rain, and doesn't sit up straight unless he is prompted. Koma can only watch him with exasperated fondness, at all the ways that he could brighten the world, with an anxious heart beating far too fast.

What if someone else _saw_. What would they _think_?

And this year, he turns three years old. The year after that- _Duty_. Koma thinks. _I could learn to hate that word._

"I'm alright." Haya musters a smile for their younger brother, and he can read the lies, but Tokuma cannot. He's a child still, and if Koma has his way, he'd be a child for a long time yet. He accepts that this is the truth, and leaves it at that.

"Alright then." Tokuma hops off the bed. "Get well soon, Neesan."

After the rest of their family leaves, after everything, when evening falls, the two of them sit together, wrapped in each other's arms, two mirrors. "Niichan?" Haya whispers.

"Yes?" He answers. _You may tell me anything. I will always be the other half of you._

"I want to learn how to heal." She says, halfway asleep. "It was my failing, out there, today." He wonders what failure really means.

 _I did not fail because I killed someone. Haya failed because she did not kill someone._

 _Is that all failure means? The inability to kill?_ And he remembers that there is more to life that killing.

"Then you will learn to heal." He twists a strand of her hair around his fingertips, and thinks of what other people would say about them. _I should take a leaf from Tokuma's book._ He decides. _I should not care._ But even as he says this, he pictures katas in his head, and knows that if the Clan cannot have Haya any longer, they will look for someone else.

 _That someone will be me._ He decides. _It will not be my Otouto, or my Haya._

* * *

"Again!" Tokuma shrieks as he flies up into the air. "Push me higher!"

Haya laughingly obeys, her hands gentle and sure. "Tokuma-kun." She says, and she looks so _happy_ that Koma knows he made the right decision the year before. "It's not polite to speak so loudly." _Nor is polite to be so demanding._

When they go home, Hyuga Hizashi-san will be waiting for them. He doesn't want to go home.

But Hyuga Koma knows his duty.

"Haya, Tokuma-kun," He doesn't want to do this. "We have to go home. Hizashi-san wants to see Tokuma-kun sometime today."

His little brother leaps off of the swing with unerring accuracy and runs towards him. "Hizashi-san, does?"

 _Not for anything good._ He looks down, into that smiling face- _will you still be smiling tomorrow?_ -His hand goes to his covered forehead. "Yes."

They walk home together, Haya's worry bleeding into the air beside him, but he says nothing. _We all must kneel. And we must stay kneeling._

* * *

He sits outside the door with Haya, and expects his kind hearted little brother to scream. He braces himself for it, for all the sound that he cannot bear to hear.

The dojo is silent. "Byakugan." He shouldn't do this to himself, shouldn't want to see it, but he cannot look away, cannot help himself.

And this is how he bears the pain. _I told you when you were born, that I'd protect you with my own body. Tokuma, Tokuma, Otouto, I have failed you._

And this failure tastes like salt, bitter and heavy on his tongue.

His little brother does not scream. Koma lets go of the byakugan as Hizashi-san finishes. Instead, he steps forward, and slides the door open to retrieve his shivering brother. "I will take him, Hizashi-san."

"So this is your student then, Hizashi?" It is Hideya-sama.

Koma wraps his arms around his Tokuma, and bows low, long hair sweeping over his shoulder. "I can't claim such an honor, Hideya-sama. Hizashi-san gives me pointers at times." _Do not pay more attention to Tokuma._ He pleads with the gods that it is enough. They have him. It must be enough.

The older man snorts. "He trains with you every morning, which is more than we can say of your sister or any other Branch child."

Koma pulls his politest smile to his lips and holds his bow. "I am Branch." He says softly. "And training is my duty, so that I may best protect the interests of the Clan."

And the Clan Head seems satisfied enough. "A pity your sister does not see this the same way." He sneers, but he steps out into the hall. "Learn from your brother's example, girl."

His words had protected himself, but hurt Haya instead. _I must apologise to her later._ But Tokuma shivers in his arms, and he carefully pulls his little brother up a little more. _Later._

"Koma-kun?" Hizashi-san asks. "Make sure to keep his forehead cool, Tokuma-kun has a very delicate chakra system." They can't speak of what has just occurred, here and in the hallway.

He nods. "I understand, Hizashi-san." He bows once to the man who is his teacher on a good day, and merely a stranger on the bad ones, and wonders what sort of day it is today. _A bad one_ , he decides. _I do not understand him today._ "Have a good evening."

And then he steps out to the hallway, and a subdued Haya.

"I am sorry." He whispers, as she takes Tokuma from him, and squeezes her hand, so that she knows it is true.

"You didn't mean it that way, Niisan." She squeezes his hand back, and that is how he knows that she understands him.

* * *

Tokuma wakes in the middle of the night, breathing heavy, sweating, and weak. "Niisan? Niisan? Niisan!"

"I am here." He'd fallen asleep here, by his bedside. There is always the chance that Tokuma would not survive, that he'd be crippled, that-"What is it that you need?"

"Niisan." A small hand grips the collar of his yukata, and pulls him closer. "Niisan." And this cry is more like a sob, than a word.

Koma smooths the wet cloth over his little brother's head, and pulls him close. "I am here. I will not leave you."

"Hurts." Tokuma gaps, all attempts at proper sentences gone. "H-hurts."

"Yes." Koma well remembers how much it hurts. "But this is our duty, Tokuma-kun. You must learn to bear it well." _You must learn to be strong, Otouto, or they will break, and spit on, and hurt you._

And for what is in his power, Hyuga Koma will protect his brother, and his sister, because they are his family, but for what is not in his power, they must be strong enough to face for themselves.

He does not think that there will ever be a time when they will need to protect him.

 _I am Niisan. I am older than both of them. I will protect them with myself._

"Alright." Tokuma snuggles closer, and sighs. "Will you stay?"

"Always, Otouto." He does not believe that his brother will die now. His breathing has evened. His eyes flutter closed.

Tokuma falls asleep half an hour later, an easier sleep than earlier that night.

Hyuga Koma doesn't sleep at all. Instead the moon sets, and the sun rises. His arms go stiff, his back aches and his legs fall asleep.

It doesn't matter.

* * *

"Sometimes I wonder if you hate me, Koma-kun." Hizashi-san says as they sit together on the steps of the dojo, a few months afterwards. The man sighs. "I wouldn't blame you if you did."

"I do not hate you." Koma replies. To hate would not be dutiful, and Hizashi-san has not done anything particularly- _No. Only enforced a system where Tokuma gets hurt_ -wrong.

"Somehow, I don't believe that." His teacher smiles, brittle in the light of the dying sun. "Ah, well. You're so dutiful that it wouldn't pass your lips even if you did hate me."

"I do not hate you." Koma says again, and the words settle more surely into the grooves that they are meant to occupy. "And I will never." He rises, and bows to his teacher. "I must go now, Hizashi-san. Please have a good evening."

Tokuma is still alive, and he'd taken to smiling a little less, but he is still alive, and that is because of Hizashi-san. He will take what he can get.

"Niisan!" His little brother meets him at the gate, forehead bare except for that-that manji which carves his heart to pieces every time he sees the thing.

"Tokuma-kun." He sets a hand on his brother's shoulder, and they walk back toward their rooms together. "You will have to start the katas soon."

His little brother's byakugan is not unimpressive, but he has been careful, careful to hide the fact from the Main Branch. It is his one act of defiance.

As of yet, they do not believe that Tokuma is anything impressive. They will not force him into the academy early. They do not even believe him to ready for the beginner's Katas despite being four and a half already.

So what if they believe that his little brother doesn't match the genius of his siblings? Koma himself knows that he'd be standing to the sidelines, laughing at them all when Tokuma became great, greater than his siblings, greater than any there are in the clan.

"I will?" Tokuma rubs his forehead absently. "Niisan?" He tilts his face up, a frown on his lips. "Why do you wear something over your forehead?"

Oh. So he had noticed then. Noticed that if it is not a hitai-ate, that the rest of his family is very careful to bandage their foreheads.

"Because-" Koma knows not how to proceed. _How do I tell him that I am ashamed of this damned mark on my forehead when he has the same thing on his own?_ "I do not want anyone to see."

"Why?" Tokuma blinks, and takes his hand, swinging their joined hands between them as they walk. "It's not any different from anyone else's forehead."

But it is. It _is_.

"Do you want me to take these off?" He gestures to the bandages. "Would it make you happier?"

"I want Niisan to do what makes Niisan happy." Tokuma says, and smiles brilliantly. "But I don't like it when Niisan wears bandages when he isn't injured."

And that, that, he'd bow to. "I'll consider it, Otouto."

That night, he unwraps the white cloth from his forehead, and stares at his own reflection in the mirror. "I don't want you to be unhappy, Tokuma-kun." He whispers to his image in the mirror. From behind him, Tokuma shifts and mumbles something in his sleep that might have been Niisan.

The black manji on his forehead is ugly, and he doesn't like to look at it. _I am not some injured fool._ He thinks, angrily to himself. _I am perfectly well. There is no reason to wear bandages._

 _It's just a mark._

It's not just a mark.

* * *

He is fourteen years old when he is called before the Hokage. He arrives, steps unhurried, knees steady. He is no longer four years old, about to meet his very first important personage.

He is old enough now that his hands are scarred and he can see fifteen kilometres without hindrance, undeterred by walls and trees. He is no longer four years old, but this is a war hero of the most venerated sort.

"Oh, have a seat, Koma-kun." The Hokage waves him to a chair.

He takes the required six steps to the chair, and bows politely once before sitting down. "Thank you, Hokage-sama."

"I've heard great things about you." Hokage-sama smiles at him kindly.

"My accomplishments are unnoteworthy." He bows his head, and folds his hands together in his lap.

"Nonsense." Hokage-sama replies, blue eyes kind. "A special jounin by thirteen years of age is nothing to scoff at."

"I try to be diligent, but I do not succeed often enough." He responds. He'd seen Tokuma off at the gate of the Academy just that morning, and kissed Haya goodbye on the cheek at the hospital, where she had her apprenticeship, and those are his only indulgences, but he is missing time to train.

He has to be better, has to be more. He has people who need him to protect them.

"The Black Ops would welcome you." Hokage-sama says at last. Gently. The man is too gentle for one without ulterior motive, but it is not Hyuga Koma's place to question it. The Yondaime is feared throughout the Elemental Nations. He'd not become the man under the hat because he'd been gentle.

"If that is your will, Hokage-sama, I would be honored." The clan would find this promotion helpful. The clan would like it, but only if he is careful.

Only if he does not outdo the members of the Main Branch. He bows once more to the Hokage, eyes downcast.

"Excellent." Hokage-sama makes a gesture, and a hooded figure in a mask appears, so quickly that Koma is not sure if he hasn't been there all along. "Bull, why don't you give Koma-kun the tiger mask, and show him what he is supposed to be doing?"

He follows after the hooded figure without a whisper of protest.

* * *

"Your team will be with Bear and Rat." Bull says. His voice is a light tenor, Koma notes. And his build is...on the slimmer side.

"Yes." Koma agrees. "I will be able to see their faces though, should I activate the Byakugan." He says. He does not know why he is now a member of the Black Ops. Jyuken is notoriously distinctive, and his eyes once active, would strip every member of their anonymity.

"You don't seem like the type to tell." Bull turns back to him, holding out a porcelain tiger mask. "But don't worry, your team's been notified. They're more or less willing to go through with it." So this is too, a contract of sorts.

He will not break it.

"I see." Koma says. He takes the mask, and fits it over his face.

"The byakugan's a valuable asset, and you've got an above average one that's not theftable." Bull shrugs. "We've got a lot of spare kunai, shuriken, and senbon in the storage rooms. Make sure to stock up when you go out on a mission. If you've got some sort of special weapon you prefer besides your hands make sure to bring it with you."

So he is an asset then. _I should have known._ Had he not been Branch, Hokage-sama would never have risked it, but-but he knows his duty no matter how much his heart burns for it.

"And here we are." Bull announces as they step into a nondescript room. "Bear, Rat, and your ANBU order tanto." With that announcement, Bull flash steps away.

"Hello." He bows politely to the two other figures in the room. "I am to be your teammate?"

"Oh lighten up, kid." A hand claps him on the back. "We're going to live and die together, and we've agreed to having our deepest secrets dug up by your eyes. We might as well not be so formal with each other." Bear takes his mask off. "Shiranui Genma. Call me Genma when we're not wearing masks, yeah?"

Rat does the same. "Namiashi Raidou. Call me Raidou."

It feels only right that he does the same. "Hyuga Koma." He says softly, even though they must know his name already, must at least know that he is a Hyuga. "You both must call me Koma."

He can feel their gazes linger on his forehead, on the ugly black manji, but they thankfully say nothing. He puts the mask back on. "Who was formerly on your team?" He asks. _Whose legacy do I have to live up to?_

"Mamba." Genma shudders as he puts the mask back on. "She's been invalidated out of ANBU, so it's safe to tell you this, but that woman was a scary one."

So it had been a woman then.

"Yeah." Raidou adds. "Wouldn't ever want to be on the other end of those disguises." _An infiltrator. How interesting._

"What happened to her?" He asks. It isn't often that one hears about someone leaving ANBU, but then, no one hears about anyone entering ANBU either.

"She was nearly sent home in a body bag." Genma looks slightly green. "Thirty stab wounds to the abdomen. Our last mission went real south."

 _I see. So that's what it takes to be invalidated out of ANBU._ He stores the information away for later.

* * *

"And I met two of the most interesting people today." Tokuma bounces slightly as he clings to Haya's hand.

"And how were they interesting?" Haya asks, to cover for Koma, who is still considering how to explain his new promotion to the clan.

"Well," Tokuma begins, an extra bounce in his step. "Did you know that the Aburame have about a million bugs? Muta-kun was kind enough to show us, they crawl out of pores in his skin, isn't that so cool? And-and, Hana-chan has three ninken, which is two more than most people, and they are the most adorable gray puppies."

"Tokuma-kun." Haya says quietly. "It isn't polite to look underneath an Aburame's clothing, and it isn't polite to call an Inuzuka's partner a puppy."

Tokuma frowns. "But Muta-kun pulled up his sleeves to show us himself. I didn't force him. Besides, Hana-chan calls her partners puppies, and they don't seem to mind." He turns to tug at Koma's sleeve. "Niisan, tell Neesan that she isn't being fair."

He could hardly tell Haya that she isn't fair. "Tokuma-kun," He says, and wishes that he could pay attention. Why can't he pay attention? "You must remember to act in a way that is befitting of the clan that we come from." He hates saying this. Tokuma doesn't care for what other people think of him, and that is better than anything that Koma has ever known.

 _I am too careful. Too careful, and that is not a good thing. Too careful. Too scared._

"Okay." His little brother slumps just a bit. "I will."

* * *

The Sandaime looks so old when he puts the hat on again. It is still the night of October Tenth. ANBU Tiger does not worry about his family. He has no family. "By now, I am sure that every one of you has heard about the fate of the Yondaime, and his wife."

"Ha." The room echoes with the quiet affirmation of over three hundred voices, but it sounds no louder than a whisper.

"The Kyubi is not dead." No, of course it is not. They are Konoha's Black Ops, the darkest operation, they would be the ones to know. "This is an S-Class secret. Not a single word of it will travel beyond these walls."

"Ha." The room sighs back. ANBU Agents do not exist, so of course they would never tell anyone.

"The Kyubi has been sealed into a boy. It is perfectly contained, and perfectly safe." The Sandaime exhales a cloud of smoke. No one says a word. No one even moves. "On occasion I will ask those among you to check up on him." He looks around the room. "Hound, Tiger, Rat, Bull, Bear, to me. Everyone else can go."

Nearly three hundred shadows disperse to go back to their daily lives. To be men and women without the masks. To be part of the clean up crews.

"Unmask." It is only a formality. A single hand sign would tell him exactly who ANBU Hound is, but Hokage-sama surely just wants to make it seem as though there is a give and take in the whole affair. ANBU Tiger sets a hand on the bottom of his porcelain mask, and slides it off.

Hound is Hatake Kakashi. The Yondaime's last surviving student. _Of course._ ANBU Tiger has never worked with Hound before.

"You five are the ones I'm most worried about." Hokage-sama sighs. "All the ANBU worked closely with Minato, but I'm afraid that you five were the closest." And here, ANBU Tiger feels that he is only distantly related to the whole affair.

The Yondaime might have appointed him to ANBU, but he was hardly very close to the man.

"Why is he here?" Hatake asks, a glare at him. "He isn't a part of the Hokage's guard."

"Because he will be." Hokage-sama smiles kindly at Koma. "You know more about each member of ANBU than anyone, except the commander, and even then, your skills are unique."

Koma bows. "I will work to ensure that your trust is not misplaced, Hokage-sama."

Hatake is still glaring at him, but it slides off of his skin like rain water. It does not matter, not truly.

"Well, you all are dismissed then."

"C'mon, kid." Genma slings an arm over his shoulder, Raidou prods him on the cheek, and Iwashi slings an arm over his other shoulder. "Let's go get drunk." There's a sob in the man's voice, a glassiness in his eyes, but Koma has other worries.

"I must go find my siblings." He murmurs, and wriggles from their grip. He is numb. "I need to know if I am attending any funerals." He is frozen inside, and only Tokuma's brilliant smiles will unthaw him.

As he leaves, he hears Iwashi ask Raidou a question. "Is he always this cold? He's worse than Hatake on a bad day, and Hatake's always having bad days."

He doesn't wait around to hear the answer.

* * *

Two months later, the sharp pain of the deaths finally sets in. He goes out to a bar, for the first time in his life, and tries to figure out if attempting to get drunk would be worth it.

And if he really does want to get drunk, what sort of drink he'd want to start with.

"You look like you're lost." It takes him a moment to realize that the girl's talking to him. From beside her, a dog barks.

An Inuzuka, with a fanged smile, and wild hair. She's only thirteen or so, hardly old enough to be a regular patron at this sort of establishment on the shady side of town, but he's not in a position to judge her himself.

She looks like she's doing her best not to cry about something.

It's only been two months since the village had been destroyed. She's got to have something to cry over.

"No more lost than you are." He settles for that in the end.

She climbs onto the bar stool next to him, and slams a few bills onto the table. "Hey, bartender, a bottle of awamori, don't bother with the fruit flavors, my friend and I here will drink it straight."

So she does know what she's talking about then. "I don't think I'm your friend." He doesn't mean to say this out loud, it's really kind of rude, but he says it anyway. It's a night of complete loss of mental facility anyway.

The dog by her feet growls at him. She pats it on the head, with a grin that doesn't reach her eyes. "Hey, hey, Sumimaru, don't be so mean to him. He's hurting too, ya know." And that she sees it so easily is just another sign that the world's upside down today. She turns to him, smiling so big he almost doesn't see the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. "I think we can be companions in misery tonight, so I'll call you friend, yeah?"

The bartender takes her money, and puts down two cups and a bottle of a liquid so clear it looks like water. "You want ice with this, kid?"

She shakes her head, and pops the cork with her teeth. "'S all good." She pours him a glass, and slides it over. "C'mon. You look like you wanna get drunk anyway."

He takes it. It's been the worst night in his life anyway.

Three cups later, they're talking as though they've known each other their entire lives. "And I told her, you know, even if she was my sister that there's no point to all of this. Baa-san's still gonna be dead either way."

"Is that why you're here?" He asks her. "Your Baa-san's dead?"

She shakes her head. "Noo..." And leans in against his shoulder as she sips from her glass. "Tou-san's being a baka about everything, and Baa-san's dead, and Cousin Gaku hates us all and he's not out of the hospital and everything's a mess, ya know." She blinks, and drains her glass. "So why're you here?"

"The Yondaime died." He sighs. "And I don't know anything."

She nods, sagely. "Hmm. You must be important then. Knowin' about the Yondaime and everything." She peers at him. "How old're you? Don't look that old, but with Hyugas I can never tell."

"I'm fifteen." But she's called him important. He's never thought about it like this before. He laughs into his drink. "I don't think so." And his hand comes up to rub his forehead. "Branch Children aren't important." He spits the last word like it's a curse. Maybe it is a curse.

"Huh." She says. "You sound bitter 'bout that to be honest."

He laughs. "Who are you?"

She pours him another drink. "Kotsuzui, but you better call me Kotsu. She gestures to the dog snoring at her feet. "'N this is Sumimaru, 'cause he's black like ink."

"Koma." He says. She knows he's a Hyuga already.

She nods sagely at this. "So we're both unimportant children, but you're more bitter 'bout it than me. How's that for laughs?"

He drains the glass. "Don't tell me about it."

He's starting to see double, and he's sure his head will kill him in the morning.

"I'll take you home." She prods his cheek, a giggle and tears streaming down her face. "What're you? A lightweight?"

He staggers to his feet and points in her general direction, there are just more of her than normal. "I drank at least five of these things. You can't call me a lightweight."

"Sure I can't." She slings one of his arms over her bony shoulders and keeps on walking. "Please don't get sick." But then she's giggly again. "Hehe, but if you did, could tell 'sha that I saw a Hyuga sicker than a dog."

He closes his eyes, and they stumble through the streets.

* * *

"And this is Hana-chan and this is Muta-kun." Tokuma gestures wildly at the boy and girl before him. Inuzuka Hana looks a lot like her cousin, Kotsu, but her face is still rounder, baby fat clinging to her cheekbones. She is younger than her teammates, no more than seven years old. _The age Haya and I were when we graduated the Academy._

 _Another young prodigy then._

Aburame Muta looks like every other member of his clan, just so incomprehensibly young. The Aburame don't like to let their children out into the wider village very often, so seeing a young Aburame in the Hyuga Compound is stranger than a dream.

"And this is Koma-niisan." Tokuma announces. "He's very very good."

And it's always his otouto that can drag him out of his troubles and into the present.

"I heard that you three are a team?" He asks, sliding into a jyuken stance. He has to be careful not to hurt them. It's been a long time since he's had a friendly spar with a few months post academy genin. "Tell me about your dreams."

They arrange themselves awkwardly into a manji formation, and charge him.

He holds back, holds back, and still nearly defeats them all in the first minute anyway. "Remember to keep your elbows in." He says, as he pulls the little Aburame past his hip by the elbow.

"Keep your fists tight." He tells the little Inuzuka, as his fingers close two tenketsu in her wrist.

"And Otouto, your stance is unsteady." A foot sweeping towards Tokuma's feet, and he stumbles forward. Koma seals four tenketsu, two in each shoulder.

"Oh, come on, Niisan!" Tokuma says, as he spits out a mouthful of grass. "This isn't even a spar. It's just flat out slaughter."

"We do need to follow his advice, Toku-kun." Aburame Muta adjusts his glasses, and offers a hand to Tokuma to help him up. "Let's go again, Hyuga-san." He bows politely to Koma. "We're very honored that you'll take time out of your day to help us."

Inuzuka Hana rubs her wrist, and grins up at him. "Thank you very much, Hyuga-san."

And he smiles back, uncertain of how genuine he looks. "Call me Koma-senpai, both of you." He tries not to be called Hyuga anything if it's possible. It reminds him too much of his eyes.

* * *

He meets Kotsu-chan inside the Inuzuka Clan Grounds, in their personal training fields close to the forest. He doubts that she'd be welcome inside the Hyuga Compound, with her wild ways and shedding black dog.

"So how'd it go?" Kotsu slides into an Inuzuka taijutsu stance, a hand on the ground in the shape of a claw. "Is my little cousin anything like me?" _How could anyone ever be like you?_

Koma takes up a Jyuken stance opposite her. "She is younger than you." He considers what he knows of Inuzuka Hana. "And she is...she has fewer sharp edges." He says, and then Kotsu is upon him.

He could seal her tenketsu, could end this in under five minutes, but it's much more fun to try and learn the Inuzuka wrestling techniques anyway.

He doesn't have another excuse for why he wants to roll around in the mud.

She pins him beneath her, her teeth snapping at his neck. He knees her in the stomach, and flips their positions. "Why do you want to know what I think about your cousin?"

She locks her foot behind his knee, and punches him in the chest. He lands on his back, winded. "Not like I know her all that well, Koma." She sits casually on his stomach, which doesn't help him catch his breath the slightest. "You've got twigs in your hair."

He opens his mouth to protest.

And she's almost kind as she drops a handful of dirt on his face. "Ya know, the villagers'll think you've gone around for a roll in a pigsty."

He spits out a mouthful of leaves and mud. "You're so kind, Kotsu-chan." But he still doesn't have his breath back, so it's more of a weak gasp.

"I know." She grins at him, fangs flashing in the morning light, but then she takes pity on him, and clambers off of his stomach. She offers him a hand. "C'mon. You can come back to the house and shower before you have to brave the village." She wrinkles her nose at him. "Besides, we need to launder your clothes before you start smelling like wet dog slobber."

He raises an eyebrow at her. "Dog slobber?"

"You forgot that you were drooled on by Sumimaru." She tosses her hair over her shoulder. "You coming or not?"

With a sigh, he follows her.

"You don't wear anything over your forehead." She squints up at him as they walk. "You okay with that?"

"Is there something wrong with the way that I am?" He asks her. _Do you find my seal uncomfortable? Would you prefer that I cover it when I come to see you?_

"No...just most of your clan wears bandages or something, ya know." She gestures in the air. "I just wondered why you don't."

"I am not injured." He prods her cheek with a finger. "Especially not in the head."

She giggles. "I wouldn't know about that, Mr. I-Roll-About-In-Pigsties."

* * *

A year later, Elder Shimura first greets him after his shift, guarding the Hokage with Hound.

"ANBU Tiger." The old man steps out of the shadows.

His hand pauses over the rim of his mask, a moment. Does he take it off, or does he not? His hand drops as he turns around, and bows. An ANBU Agent does not speak until spoken to.

"You may take the mask off. I know who you are." He's leaning on his cane, but ANBU Tiger knows better than to think of weakness.

Elder Shimura.

There'd been plenty of interesting rumors circulating about Elder Shimura and his special branch of ANBU.

He takes the mask off. "How may I be of assistance, Elder Shimura?" He asks, calmly. ANBU Tiger has no discernible personality beyond his polished politeness and silence. Even without the mask, he is still on duty.

"The Hyuga Prodigy." Elder Shimura says at last, a gaze roaming over his form. "You would do well under me."

"I am ANBU Tiger." He replies. "ANBU Tiger does not know anything about the Hyugas." He wants nothing particular to do with the dead eyed boys and girls that moved about Elder Shimura.

Hyuga Koma very privately thinks that he knows exactly why Elder Shimura is interested in him.

As Hokage-sama had once said, he knows more about his fellow members of ANBU than perhaps even the commander. If Elder Shimura is recruiting, it might be best to recruit the one member who could tell him the identity of every man and woman behind the masks.

"Hyuga Koma has aging parents, and two siblings." Elder Shimura continues blithely. "A twin sister at the hospital, and a little brother currently a genin."

"ANBU Tiger is not the least bit interested in Hyuga Koma's family." And that is supposed to be true, but his fear is icy all the same. _What do you want with my Haya, and my otouto?_

"Hyuga Koma, also," Elder Shimura continues as if he hasn't heard a thing. "Has a fondness for Inuzuka Kotsuzui. I would think he calls her a friend."

"Elder Shimura?" ANBU Tiger bows once. "I am uncertain as to why you are telling me about Hyuga Koma." His voice does not have a shred of emotion within. His knees do not tremble, but his heart beats faster.

If he were any less deep, he'd feel faint. _What do you want with the people I love?_

"I only think that Hyuga Koma could be very interested in the work I want to offer him." Elder Shimura sighs. "But of course, ANBU Tiger knows nothing about him, or how to contact him. What a pity."

The old man disappears back into the shadows.

Koma stays there for a long moment, trying to bring his still beating heart under control. This is a threat to his family, to all that he's still capable of loving, but he knows his duty.

He'd entered ANBU under contract to keep his mouth shut about his fellows. He has duty to say nothing, despite even pressure from an Elder.

* * *

He is on duty when the Hokage is called down to the Hyuga Compound, one night in late December. _It is Heiress Hinata's third birthday, today. What about a child's birthday party could call even the Hokage from his office at this time of night?_

They arrive in the main dojo, and laid out in the center of the floor is the Head Cloud Ninja, clearly nothing more than a cooling corpse by this moment.

It is certainly enough to warrant calling the Hokage and his personal guard.

Hideya-sama looks concerned. Hiashi-sama looks entirely calm.

Hizashi-san has a face scraped clean of every emotion. He might as well have been stone.

"What happened here?" Hokage-sama asks, and he sound very very _tired._

 _I am probably here because Hokage-sama wants as few outsiders to see this as possible. Hideya-sama and Hiashi-sama do not know my mask, but Hokage-sama is certainly giving them a great deal of face._

"The bastard tried to kidnap my daughter." Hiashi-sama snarls, veins bulging, arms wrapped around Hinata-hime, who seems to be sleeping peacefully. "So I killed him, as was my right."

Hideya-sama sighs. "My son has been rash." A glare in Hiashi-sama's direction. "And this is the result."

"You have killed a peace ambassador." Hokage-sama observes mildly. "The man signed a peace treaty with me just this morning. Kumo will be out for our blood. We are the ones who have broken the peace."

"He was about to kidnap Hinata, and you say that we are the ones who have broken the peace?" Hiashi-sama's arms tighten just a little more, and Hinata-hime squeaks in protest, her arms around her father's neck.

"We have no proof of that." Hokage-sama replies, and sighs. "But what's done is done."

* * *

The demand for Hiashi-sama's head comes by dawn the next morning. Kumo threatens war if their demand is not met.

It had been a trap either way.

Hizashi-san had come to him in the hour before dawn, and asked for his presence. "You wouldn't abandon me now, will you, Koma-kun?"

"Of course not, Hizashi-san." He offers the other man his shoulder. Hizashi-san seems to have aged a decade in the hours since he'd seen him last.

"Somehow, I still feel like you hate me, Koma-kun." He is speaking unnecessarily, but Koma is too tired to stop him. "I want you know that I am sorry for what I did to you."

"I do not hate you for what you did to me. The seal is only a seal." The ugly black manji on his forehead is simply a mark. It is nothing more than that.

Hizashi-san nods. "I did always wonder why you kept it uncovered." A rueful smile tugs at the man's lips. "I thought perhaps that you did it to spite me."

"Never, Hizashi-san." Koma replies. "I do not need to bandage my head when I have no injuries to speak of."

"I see." Hizashi-san takes him by the shoulders. "You were the first child I sealed." A sigh, the man looks close to tears. "The last was my own son. My Neji. Please, Koma-kun, take care of him. I have no one else to ask."

"I will." Koma says, though he scarcely knows why.

Hizashi-san nods, firm, and smiles, brighter than Koma has ever seen him. "I have no regrets then."

It is only when Hizashi-san volunteers to die in his brother's stead that Koma understands. _So that is why._

 _He loves his brother._

The word love tastes like ash on his tongue. _What is love?_

* * *

There is no funeral. There isn't even a grave, but Koma does stop in to see Hizashi-san's now orphaned son between a shift in ANBU and overseeing his otouto's team in their training.

The boy throws a vase at him. "Go away!"

Koma steps closer. Grief makes people do strange things. He would know, it's bent and twisted him in all sorts of ways. "I will not."

"You're here to laugh." Neji kneels on the floor, shoulders heaving. "Go away, I don't want you."

"You want Hizashi-san." He sets a hand on the boy's shoulder. "But you can only have me, and I will not laugh at you."

"I don't want you." Neji sobs, the hitch in his voice more like a whimper than a scream. "I hate you."

Koma gathers the four year old in his arms. "You don't know the meaning of hate, Neji-kun." _You haven't had the required amount of years to build resentment quite yet._ "And you don't want to." More than grief, hate twists the heart to do all sorts of terrible things.

Hyuga Neji is still just a little boy. There is no need for him to learn how to hate.

The boy clings to him as he sobs. "I want Chichi. I want him back."

"I know." Koma tells him, though now that Hizashi-san is dead, he can admit to himself that pretty much every day had been a bad one. Hizashi-san had always been more a stranger than a teacher despite how much Koma himself did or did not understand. "But you cannot have him."

'But I w-want."

"You cannot have him anymore, Neji-kun. No one can." No one except Kumo.

Neji falls asleep in his arms, and he tucks the boy back into bed. Haya would know better what to do, but she is so busy these days with her own patients.

Hizashi-san had not asked Haya to take care of his son. He'd asked Koma.

Hyuga Koma simply recognizes that he is a terrible person to help with much of anything.

* * *

Failure tastes unusual on his tongue. Unusual enough that he does not remove his ANBU uniform before leaving base. And now, now it seems likely that Hokage-sama would consider Elder Shimura's request. It is all but agreed.

He could not possibly tell the Hokage that his oldest friend wants information for nefarious purposes and had threatened him. He has no proof. He has only rumors blowing in the wind.

It is merely his luck that he runs into Inuzuka Hana-chan on his way back to his house.

"Koma-senpai!" She calls, crossing the street. "Can I walk you home?"

He summons a smile for her, taking in her disheveled appearance and the direction from whence she'd come. "Hana-chan, if I am not much mistaken you just came from my home."

"Yes." She sighs, her honesty just the same as ever. "I just came from your house, but I want to walk with you." She'd seen something in him that has worried her then.

His smile slips from his face. "Of course you may if you wish to, Hana-chan." The little Inuzuka prodigy's worry is hardly something he wishes to court.

They walk another block in silence before he works up the energy to ask her a question. "If you had to choose between service to your village, and service to your clan, what would you choose?"

She glances up at him, something moving in her dark eyes, and he has to remind himself that she is not capable of reading his very soul. But asking her is better than trying to ask Kotsu, who would laugh and tell him that he is the only important thing in the world, and that he ought to watch out for his own neck.

"I would chose neither, Koma-senpai." She says. "I would choose my family."

He nods. "It is a good idea." He sighs. "The Elder Shimura wants me to work on more dangerous missions for him." He doesn't know why he tells her this, perhaps so that she'd know, when Elder Shimura approached her with a deal of his own, that she'd be on her guard. Perhaps it is because he lacks people to tell.

"You do not want to." She observes. "If you do not want to, you should refuse." She says this with the innocence that only childhood can bring. Only a child would say that anyone should simply refuse things that they disliked doing.

He laughs gently. "I do not think that is an option, Hana-chan." He smiles, smiles and tries to hide how much he feels the mountain on his shoulders. Duty. It is such a heavy word. "I cannot say no to Elder Shimura, the Hokage has agreed." Her face twists, something like fury working its way onto her features. He does not want to look at what he's done to this little eight year old. He turns away. "I assume the Clan would agree as well."

"But what would your family think?" What would they think? His gentle Haya, his happy Otouto, his wild Kotsu-chan, what would they think of him? Hyuga Koma, traitor to his village. They would shun him then, he is sure.

"They would not agree to such an arrangement." He comments. "That is why I asked you. The Inuzuka are known for being true to themselves, and you are the Inuzuka that I know best." This is a lie, a lie darker than any other he's told recently, and for someone who tells himself that he cares about truth, he's so bad at telling it.

Kotsu-chan's face flashes across his mind. He knows her better than he knows her little cousin, knows her grief, her anger, and her despair, but it suits his purposes to say that he knows Inuzuka Hana best. Her path is more like his that she knows.

She grabs both of his forearms, and looks him in the eye. "You love both Haya-senpai, and Toku-kun very much, Koma-senpai. And you care very deeply for your parents. Don't let Elder Shimura take what is precious to you away."

She knows nothing of how much he cares for her elder cousin. But her words are true. He nods once, to show that he's heard.

* * *

"I would like to resign from ANBU." He says at last, before both of his parents, before Hideya-sama, Hiashi-sama and Haruki-sama.

"Have you forgotten your duty to the clan, boy?" Hideya-sama asks him.

Koma smiles at him, meeting his eyes at last. "Yes. I would like to request this for my own peace of mind."

"Koma," Haha begins, but she is silenced by Hiashi-sama's glare.

"You are Branch. You have no place to ask anything."

"I am a human." Koma says at last, all the words he has always wanted to say spilling past his lips. The river is rising, and he lacks the energy to stop it. If he dies here today, he can hardly betray his word, his friend, and his family. "And I do not want to continue serving in ANBU."

The pain splits his head open. A strangled scream breaks from his throat. He had not screamed when the seal was applied, but he screams now.

He barely has the presence of mind to bit down, down on something. It is his flesh, but it stops him from screaming. The pain continues.

"Please, Hideya-sama! He is my only twin." It is Haya, Haya with her arms thrown wide as if she could shield him with her own body. "Please, Hideya-sama, Niisan did not mean to offend."

"Step aside, girl." Hideya-sama rumbles, just enough disdain, but also just enough mercy. "Step aside."

Haya shakes her head. "He is my brother. Please, spare him. I'll do anything. Please." _You do not mean that, Haya. Please._

He sets a hand on her shoulder, and says three words that would break her heart. "Haya, step aside."

"No!" And it is Haya who is sobbing in his arms. His pain has ended, but his heartbreak has only just begun.

Teacups shatter across the floor. He barely pays attention. "What are you doing?" It is a girlish voice, and the fury reminds him of Kotsu-chan. "What _do you think you're doing, Hyuga-sama_?"

Koma raises his head. It is Inuzuka Hana-chan.

"Who do you think you are to question the Hyuga, little girl?" Hideya-sama looks furious, but she has no seal on her head to activate.

She bares her teeth, but she has no fangs. "I am a queen, and they are _my pack_." He did not know that his brother's little Inuzuka teammate loved so easily, but he should know better by now.

She has distracted Hideya-sama enough that Haya is no longer being tortured.

Hideya-sama raises a hand, but seems to think better of it, it does not descend.

"Go on. Go on. Strike me, Hyuga-sama, I dare you. You will not live to see the sunrise." She takes a step forward. "The pack hunts in the dark. I will be the Queen Mother of the Inuzuka, and when I am the first one I am hunting is you." Her voice is vicious enough that Koma almost believes her.

"You have no business here, girl." Hideya-sama sets down his hand. "Get out."

She turns to Hiashi-sama "You lost a twin, Hyuga-sama." Everyone knows never to speak of this, but she probably doesn't know. "They are twins who love each other far more than you ever loved your brother." She slams her hands on the table before Hiashi-sama, and digs her own grave deeper. "You _let your brother die, Hyuga-sama. Think about the cross you carry_."

Koma closes his eyes. "Please, Hana-chan. Don't make this harder." _Don't do this to yourself, Hana-chan. I realize that you love us, more than I deserve, but please. You do not want this for yourself._

The next thing he feels is her hands warm against his wrists.

"I will be merciful." Hideya-sama says, but it is not mercy that he's offering. It is poison. Death would have been kinder. "All five of you will remain within the protection of the Hyuga Clan. I trust you understand your duty, boy."

Koma nods, his eyes still closed. "I understand."

"And Hideta, discipline your children. All three of them are disappointments." Hideya-sama is taking his anger out on Chichi-ue then. Koma feels almost sorry. "Your elder boy was the only point of pride you could scrap together, and he's proven disobedient at last."

"As you command, Hideya-sama." Chichi-ue murmurs, because that is what he has to do.

"I will have to speak to your Haha-ue, Inuzuka Hana." This is Hiashi-sama now. Koma listens, and wonders if Hana-chan's haha-ue would punish her. She probably would.

Koma is sorry, sorry for that.

* * *

"Haya-chan?" He sits by his sister's side, and wonders at why he recovered before her. _Because Hideya-sama wants to prove his power._

 _It is my one good decision to choose a day that Toku is not inside the compound, and will not be for hours yet._

"Niichan?" She reaches out for him, and he takes her hand.

"I've come to a decision about my eyes." He says. It has always been about his eyes. These cursed all seeing eyes. It is why he has a seal. It is why he entered ANBU. It is why his life is a mess.

He would rather be blind.

"You don't mean it, Niichan." She says, and pulls him closer.

"I do." He tells her. "I do. I would rather be blind."

Her hands brush his eyes tenderly. "Do you hate ANBU that much, Niichan?"

He thinks about it, thinks about Raidou's whispers, Hatake's glares, Genma's casual laughter, thinks about how ANBU Mamba was invalidated out of ANBU, thirty stab wounds to the abdomen, nearly sent home in a body bag, thinks of the nightmares, the long nights, the blood on his hands, and how tired he is, thinks of the contracts that bind him, and how traitorous he'd be if he talked.

"Yes, Haya. I hate ANBU." It is another lie, a gross oversimplification of the truth, but he realizes, it's been years since he's told the truth.

* * *

Inuzuka Hana is sitting in her favorite training field when he interrupts. "Hana-chan?"

"Koma-senpai?" She scrambles to her feet, and rushes toward him. "Are you alright? Do you need something?"

He laughs softly, but inside his stomach rolls. "I will be fine, Hana-chan. I need to ask for your help." _Oh and what a burden this will be for you_. He takes her by the shoulders, but his grip is loose. "You're the only one who can help me. _" Lies. Lies. All lies. You are a liar, Hyuga Koma. You always have been, you always will be. A liar._

"How?" She asks, so innocent. He almost turns back.

But his thoughts are of Haya, of Toku, of Kotsu, and he does not want to be a traitor.

"Follow me." He straightens and leads her towards the Forest of Death. "We have to go to a different training ground for this."

* * *

"You'll have to take me to Konoha General after this." He smiles at her, the lies and the truth mixing until he knows nothing of who he is. "I'm sorry you have to see this Hana-chan. Wait half an hour here with me."

And then he pulls out a kunai and very deliberately slashes it over both of his eyes. The seal on his forehead tries to react, but this is no enemy attacking him, this is only himself. Self-mutilation is not something covered by the caged bird seal. He gouges out one eye with his bare hands and rips chakra enhanced scratches across that portion of his face.

"KOMA-SENPAI!" She sounds upset. It must be shocking for her to see this.

He grabs her by the elbows. "I'm very sorry, Hana-chan." But his hold is strong. She cannot twist away, and here, there is no one to hear them even if she was to scream.

"Why are you doing this?" She asks, so confused, so broken.

"Hana-chan." He says, and he's perfectly calm. "Please, sit down and wait with me." He wipes away some of the blood. It is uncomfortable to feel so bloody, to feel like he is bleeding and dying, but this pain is nothing. "I'll pass out before thirty minutes is up." He sighs." It is very painful, but listen to me, Hana-chan. If you want to help me you have to drag me out of here in twenty minutes, not before." He pulls her close, though it is no comfort at all. "I am choosing my family. I cannot serve in ANBU if I am blind." He tries to say this in a way that she'd understand.

 _I am sorry, Hana-chan. So sorry, but you must understand, I can't burden anyone else with this._

He could, but he could hardly trust his sister, his brother, or his Kotsu-chan not to drag him to the hospital before this. They would not understand.

He doesn't even know if Hana-chan would really agree. It is his blood on her hands despite how much he's spared her the act itself.

"You can't see when you're blind either!" She doesn't protest his hold.

"I am asking you to tell a lie for me, Hana-chan." The pain is greater now. "I was here training. I was mauled by a bear. They will not believe that." He takes a breath. "They will believe that I have set this up on purpose, but there's no real proof beyond what they believe. And you had a meeting with me here, that's why you are here to drag me back to Konoha General, but it will be too late. That's why you're covered with blood."

"Koma-senpai, are you sure?" She seems to be weakening. He can't see her, can't tell.

If she does as he asks, he will live the rest of his life in darkness.

"Yes." He whispers, and his hold on reality slips. _Please Hana-chan. This is the last thing I will ever ask of you._

* * *

He wakes in the hospital, but waking is the same as not waking, to someone sobbing over his chest. "Niisan." It's Toku.

"Tokuma-kun?" He asks, and raises a hand rather awkwardly in an attempt to find his little brother. "Don't cry. I'm alright really."

"It wasn't a damned bear." Toku half screams. "Tell me the truth, Niisan. What happened to you? They said that Hana-chan brought you in, but she'd never do something like this. Tell me, Niisan." His brother is dissolving into hysterics.

"Who do you think?" Koma asks him _. I did this for you, Otouto_. But the depth of his little brother's love for Inuzuka Hana is unexpected. _I did not think that you two were so close, so close as for even a hint of betrayal to seem so raw to you._

"I don't know, Koma-niisan. Tell me."

His hands find Toku's hair. "The hand in your hair." His brother gasps, but Koma continues. "I have no dream for ANBU."

"I don't understand you, Niisan." He sounds so betrayed, but Koma really is tired. Tired, tired, so _tired._

 _Forgive me, Otouto. I've been the selfish one this time._

Hideya-sama comes to see him next. Koma recognizes him by his chakra. "So this is your decision then, boy." The old man sits down in the chair by his bedside. Strangely enough, he does not sound angry.

"I was mauled by a bear, Hideya-sama." Koma replies. "I slipped during my training in the Forest of Death. It was hardly a conscious decision."

"Oh, don't tell lies, boy." The chair creaks. "I had to get rid of the evidence of your own blood beneath your nails. You did it yourself, there was no bear in any of this. As if you would lose to a bear."

Koma inclines his head in the former clan head's direction, but keeps his mouth shut.

Hideya-sama laughs as he rises. "I will tell you this, boy. Your determination is commendable." The old man's footsteps had nearly died away, but he still speaks, poison dripping from every word. "But careful now, boy. The Inuzuka love strength above all. Your girl won't look twice at you now."

And his heart plunges, plunges into icy despair. _The Inuzuka love strength._

 _I am a cripple now._

* * *

Haya guides him on New Year's Day, an arm looped through his so that he does not trip over objects.

"Hana-chan." He inclines his head in the direction of her approaching chakra. "And a guest." It is one of Kotsu-chan's sisters, but he does not know them well enough to tell which one she is by her chakra, so he merely nods in her direction.

"How did you know where we were?" Her voice sounds like...Kihaku, he decides. _This is Kihaku, not Kosha._ "You're fully blind right now, right?"

Hideya-sama's words come back to him. _The Inuzuka love strength above all._

He smiles. "I am a chakra sensor, Inuzuka-chan. I still do know where most people are." _Tell your sister to come and see me so that this can be over with, Kihaku. Tell her of how broken I am now, how crippled, how I will never fight again._

 _Tell her._

"I'm glad to see you're still alive." It's Hana. Hana who doesn't seem to have noticed his despair.

He acknowledges her statement with a nod, and tilt of his head. "It is thanks to you, Hana-chan."

"Thank you, Hana-chan." Haya murmurs from beside him. "We are in your debt, Koma-niisan and I."

"Come, Hana." Toku says, his voice seemingly farther away. "Walk with me to Mufu-an."

Koma does not think that his brother really wants to go to a tea house, but it isn't really his place to protest.

* * *

He has found another bar now, although it is awkward enough to sit here. It's been months already. He should be used to this by now. "It's strange isn't it?" "Isn't that the Hyuga Prodigy?" "How was he defeated by a bear?" "Hush." "Oh come on now, he can't hear us, he's blind." His ears still work fine, despite his lack of eyes.

"A bottle of awamori, I'll drink it straight." He folds his bills now, so that he can distinguish between the different ones.

A hand over his stops him from sliding it over. "Bartender, I'm paying." It's Kotsu-chan.

He tilts his face up in her direction. "How did you find me?"

She sits down on the stool, taking care to make enough noise that he knows what she's doing. She doesn't move her hand away. "I followed my nose like any good Inuzuka." She doesn't say that she just looked for the blind man. He is grateful. She forces his bills back in his wallet without a hint of shame. The action is annoying. Had he been-normal, uncrippled, whole-like before, he would have argued, but right now, he really can't.

There is no Jyuken to him now, and what is he exactly without his eyes?

"You've been avoiding me, Koma." She sounds...annoyed? Upset? Irritated, he settles for that. _She sounds irritated._

"I figured you didn't want to see me." _See_. He nearly laughs at this. "I can't see you."

She presses a glass of awamori into his hand. "I trust you can still find your mouth, Mr I-can't-see-so-woe-is-me."

He doesn't bring it to his lips. "You can leave now." He doesn't want to sit here next to her. Sumimaru bumps his other hand, whines, and drools on his thigh. He hasn't the energy to push the dog away. "You've seen the blind man."

"You think I'm here to see you 'cause you're blind?" She laughs, and it sounds like she's choking. "Okami, you really are a stupid one, aren't you?" She takes him by the hand, and drags him away. He stumbles along after her.

"You left the bottle here, Girlie!" The bartender shouts after them.

"Oh, sell it to some other poor fool. You overcharge anyway." She yells back, still dragging Koma along.

He's disoriented. "We've left my cane behind." He says. Really, he just wants to return to the bar, and have her leave him alone.

"Like you really need a cane when you've got me." She slings his arm over her bony shoulders, and her own arm snakes around his waist. "You're daft, ya know."

She doesn't seem to be treating him any differently. He realizes this through the haze of his own self pity. "When are you leaving me?" He asks.

"Just about never." Her lips brush his jaw, and she cups his face with both hands. Her fingers are a little cold. He can imagine her, the lighting in her eyes, the tightness of her lips, the big black dog curled around her legs. Sumimaru's tail bumps against his legs. "You're stuck with me, Hyuga Koma, never forget that."

"Why?" He really shouldn't ask, shouldn't push his luck, he's got it good enough. _The Inuzuka love strength above all._

 _I should have known that it was a lie._

"'Cause you listened." Her grip on his face tightens. "You invite a wolf into your heart. You're never kicking her out, you understand?" She sounds slightly frightened. He hasn't the heart to tell her that her words are more of a plea than a declaration, or an order.

He tilts his head down until their foreheads touch, and sighs. "Yes, I understand, Kotsuzui-hime."

"Kotsu." She whispers, breath warm against his lips. "Just Kotsu."

"Kotsu." He agrees. "Kotsu- _chan._ "

When their lips meet it tastes of resolution, of union, and it doesn't matter that he cannot see it.

He feels it in his bones. And maybe that is all truth is.

* * *

"Never forget who you are.

The rest of the world will not.

Wear it like armor,

And it can never be used to hurt you."

-Tyrion Lannister, _Game of Thrones_

* * *

 **A.N.** So, Koma-senpai's life has been...well one big roller coaster ride of there are many layers of messed up. But he managed to survive it all, and things are getting better, if only slightly. He's still blind at the end of it all.

I promise I am not dead, FFnet has just been strange recently, so I've had a hard time publishing things. Currently, things are on a temporary fix while I try to work through some technical issues.

Thank you so much to ManawaSasa, Born to Sleep (I just feel that the whole Uchiha situation wouldn't have gone south so bad if he were you know...good at politics.), Belphygor, EverBear01, LittleMissSugarLess, ArturoLJ50, AnimeFreak71777 (:P), MiyuKazu, Shion Lee (I'm glad you liked it! And don't worry, beautiful is an adjective...), NightsBlackRose13, Cooked Ghost (Mikoto the Matchmaker, yes she is sometimes quite strange.), Axel Fones, Love Stories00 (We might get that, but I don't know entirely.), syphiralae (Thanks! I fixed it.), fernandfeather, LightofKenopsia (Thank you! And I think it's just called 'family feels' but I don't know.), UnbiasedBias (Yes. Fugaku spends much of his life focused on the future and not the past. It's what makes him strong.), StarklyRamie (I live to make people like Fugaku! The scene where he and Mikoto sit waiting for Itachi to come kill them breaks my heart every time I watch it, and I am convinced that he isn't a horrible human being.), and Guest (I will have another Kakashi perspective. It's called Bansai, but trying to write it is like pulling teeth right now.) for reviewing!

And everyone who favorited and followed!

~Tavina.


	13. An Inch of Gold

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

"An inch of gold is equal to an inch of time, but an inch of time cannot be bought with an inch of gold."

-Chinese Proverb

* * *

The first thing that Inuzuka Kiba remembers, is being curled up by Neechan's side, surrounded by the Triplets, as she tells him a story. She'd trace the words on the page, and he'd follow along.

Reading comes easily to him, because words are just what stories are made of, though Neechan always tells the best stories when she isn't reading from books, when they're just sitting together, on the floor of her room in a big fluffy pile, and she tells stories that she makes up.

She told him one about a group of seven adventurers and their quest to destroy a ring that would destroy the chakra of a very powerful opponent. It was a long one, and the adventurers had strange names, and her voice grew hoarse after telling for nights on end, the different obstacles they'd had to face. She tells him that the youkai left this land, very far far away, and the gods deserted the realm of men because all good things go away, and Kiba wonders if this isn't just a story she's made up.

It seems very much like where they came from, though he can't find anything in any book that tells him about these people and this story of a ring.

When Neechan tells stories that she makes up, everyone has strange and unusual names, and he can never find them in history books.

After that, she told him the story of a man who'd been wronged and locked in a prison like the Blood Prison for many many years, and how he came back and took revenge afterwards. It also took many nights to tell this story. Her voice slipped into sadness when she told him the end, that revenge drove the man mad, and ruined the lives of many others who could have lived well.

Kiba reminds himself that revenge isn't a very good thing if it does that. He can't find any historic examples of this man either, who'd lived on an island, who'd been rich enough to own an island, but Uchiha Madara and his desires to take revenge come pretty close.

A little later, and she tells him the story of a man who built a monster out of fat pride and gave it life, and how it turned around and destroyed the lives of everyone he loved.

Kiba had a few nightmares about this one, and decided that Neechan's bed was a nice place to stay, and that he shouldn't go around building actual people. He isn't sure if he wants to actually look this one up, because it sounds too close to the truth.

He gets a little older, and Neechan is a little busier and sometimes she leaves for months on end, and he has to read his own stories, and make up his own games. It is lonely, but Neechan always comes home, and at the end of the day, she'd tell him small stories-a magic beanstalk, three little pigs, a girl no bigger than a thumb, a ninja warrior made of tin, a white snake, a pair of butterfly lovers, a hero who shot arrows at the sun, a woman who floated up to the moon with a rabbit.

It seems as though Neechan is made up of infinite stories, like she's dropped from the sky, and whenever he asks, she has a new one to tell him. No one knows as many strange and interesting stories as Neechan does, not Kaa-san, not Cousin Ashi, not even the librarians when he asks them, nicely, to tell him another story.

So no wonder, Kiba grows older, and firmly believes that Neechan knew more than the entire world put together. Neechan is five years older than him, which is a lifetime's age according to him, but she's not five years older than him like other people are five years older than him.

Neechan seems older than that, wiser than that, smarter than that, and on the streets as they pass, he'd hear people call her a prodigy, a genin at seven.

It makes him inordinately proud. _Neechan's the best. The bestest ever._

* * *

Neechan loves lemon candies, just like him, or maybe he loves lemon candies just like Neechan, which is really just the same thing anyway.

When they walk together, he rides on Neechan's shoulders. And today, they're going to the park. He'd met Tou-san today, and discovered that they both looked lots like Kaa-san. He likes today, even if it is sad that Tou-san's dead.

His mood is perfect today because Neechan agreed to come and look at his sandcastle when he's done, so of course he meets a meanie at the sandpit when Neechan is at the swings, and of course it has to be more than one meanie.

"Niisan." Says the smaller one, who's building a sand castle of all different kinds of stupid. Everyone knows that you have to pack the bottom with lots and lots of sand before you try to carve out any turrets. But then, the meanie is stupid, so that's that. "You're the bestest and smartest person in the entire world!"

And _that_ is just a lie. Kiba turns around and opens his mouth to tell him so. "No. Neechan's obviously better than your dumb Niisan, stupid." _Shouldn't be so mean to other people, Kiba-chan._ Neechan whispers in his mind, and he shoves the idea away. _Not mean. 'S just true._

The younger one, he's nicknamed this one 'stupid,' opens his big mouth and lots of stupid comes out. "You're _wrong._ Niisan's is so totally better than your dumb Neechan!"

"Sasuke!" The older meanie says, and he's nicknamed this one 'idiot,' but Kiba barely hears him over the roaring in his ears. _You gonna call Neechan dumb?_

His hands clench into fists, though he doesn't dive forward right then and there, so Neechan will be super proud of him. "You take that back!"

Stupid says nothing, just crosses his arms and smiles like he's better or something.

Kiba flings a handful of sand at him. "You take that back!"

Idiot frowns, and Kiba pulls his lips back in the snarl that he's seen Neechan and Kaa-san do when they're mad at outsiders. "Neechan's super strong." He says flatly. "She tells the best stories."

"Who cares about stupid stories!" Stupid shouts at him, and flings a handful of sand in his direction. "Bet your dumb Neechan isn't strong as Niisan!"

"Sasuke! Apologize!" Says Idiot, but Kiba's heard enough about Stupid badmouthing Neechan.

"'M go get her, and then you'll shut up." He jabs an angry finger in Stupid's direction. _Neechan's at the swings._

* * *

"Neechan! Neechan!" He is right. Neechan is on the swings. "Neechan you've gotta come over."

She scoops him up, as soon as she's off the swing. "What's the matter, Kiba-chan?"

This is much better. The meanies had been fighting him two to one, but now he has Neechan, and he can admit that he'd felt a little scared before. Just a little scared, not a lot a lot scared, but it's good to have a Neechan. "There's a real meanie by the sand pit and he says that you aren't the best Neechan in the world 'cause he's got a Niisan that's better and-"

Neesan squeezes him tight. "Well, let's go back to the sand pit and I'll build you a better castle, alright?"

"Yeah!" That sounds like the best thing in the world. And then those stupid meanies will shut up and everything will be just like it's supposed to be."We'll make the best castle ever!"

"Itachi-kun?" Neechan asks, and Idiot turns around with a smile. _Wait. Neechan knows the older meanie?_ He isn't sure if he's supposed to feel betrayed.

"Hello, Hana-chan." Something in his mind howls. _It's not fair. It's not fair. Not fair, not fair, not fair._

"Kiba-chan said that someone thought I wasn't a good sibling?" Neechan's being pleasant and nice with the meanies. She shouldn't be. She should be proving that she's better.

Kiba decides he needs to take his own actions to defend Neechan. A hit on the sandpit, and Stupid's sand castle falls down. _Hah! You really were bad at making them._

 _They're not supposed to fall down._

"I already told you, Niisan's better cause he's a ninja." Stupid's just rehashing. Besides-

"Well Neechan's also a ninja and she's better than anyone, so there." And now the rest of the castle's gone too, so there.

"Kiba-chan..." Neechan's aiming for his ticklish spots. "Don't be mad."

"But you're the best Neechan in the world!" Why didn't Neechan dislike them? Stupid had said she was dumb.

She laughs, golden-brown eyes brighter than the sun. "But you see, Sasuke doesn't have a Neechan. He has a Niisan. That's different." It isn't different at all, as far as Kiba is aware, but Neechan seems to like the older meanie.

So he'll have to like older meanie too, and that means calling him Itachi instead of Idiot. It doesn't mean he has to care a bit for Stupid though.

* * *

Now that he's met Stupid, it seems like the other boy is turning up every time he visits the park.

He's sitting in the sandpit again, making his sandcastle while Cousin Ashi followed after with a book and knitting needles, when Stupid shows right back up.

"Where's your dumb Neechan?" Stupid asks, in that voice that really means he's really super better, and Kiba sees red.

"She's at the Chunin Exams so there." He crosses his arms. "Is your stupid Niisan there?"

Stupid freezes for a moment, and doesn't respond.

 _Hah! So you know he's not there._

"Who cares bout the stupid chunin exams." This is just Stupid trying to save face. He's embarrassed cause Kiba's proven that Neechan's better than his stupid Niisan. "They're dumbo anyway."

Kiba's willing to let that slide, but Stupid kicks at his sandcastle, and some of it falls down.

He growls and lunges for Stupid. "You're a stupid, and your Niisan's a stupid." He heard a song on the street, and now he's just making up words for it, because this is just so unfair and he hates it. "You're a stupid and your Niisan's a stupid and you'll only ever be a stupid!"

"Get off!" Stupid wails. "Why're you so mean?"

Kiba remembers that it's bad to seek revenge, and Neechan doesn't like it when he gets sand in the bed, so he lets Stupid up, but when Stupid tries to run away, he follows him. "Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, you're a smelly stinky stupid."

Stupid bursts into tears and runs away.

He feels a little bit uncomfortable about this, but also a little triumphant. _See! I told you Neechan was better!_

 _It's not good to be so mean, Kiba-chan. I'm disappointed._ He puts the thought away carefully, guiltily. He wasn't being mean. Stupid was mean first.

It still settles uneasily though, so he follows after the scent of the tears Stupid had left behind, all the way to a gate.

Itachi-meanie's waiting for him, with angry eyes. "What did you say to Sasuke?"

It takes Kiba a moment to remember that Sasuke's Stupid's real name. "Said he was stupid. He was a meanie earlier 'cause Neechan's gone." He holds out the lemon candy. "But didn't mean to make him cry 'bout it." He scuffs the street with the toe of his sandal. "And he's really wimpy 'cause he cried 'cause I called him stupid, but sorry about calling him stupid."

Itachi-meanie takes the candy. "Don't do it again, Inuzuka Kiba." And then Itachi-meanie is gone, and Kiba has to go home.

Home to no Neechan to tell him he did a good job. He half suspects Neechan wouldn't think he did a good job anyway.

* * *

He doesn't meet Stupid Sasuke much after that. It takes another year.

"You're the meanie from the sandpit!" _And you didn't accept my apology so you don't get any._

Neechan prevents him from engaging Stupid Sasuke in another fight. "Kiba-chan...I already told you that Sasuke-chan is not a meanie."

Stupid Sasuke's hiding being Itachi-meanie like a coward, but he's sitting on Neechan's shoulders, so this is slightly better. "But Neechan! I made sure that he went home crying last time!" He doesn't mean to confess this, he really doesn't...it just sort of...pops out.

He's pulled off of Neechan's shoulders. "What did you do to Sasuke-chan last time?" It doesn't sound like Neechan's happy. _I knew it._

"I only told him that Neechan is much better than his rotten Niisan 'cause Neechan was at the exams." Kiba crosses his arms and kicks a bit of dirt. "It's his fault he started crying cause I made up a song 'bout how great you are and what a loser his Niisan is." He doesn't want to see Neechan's reaction to this. That and Stupid Sasuke hadn't accepted his apology anyway.

Neechan tilts his head up. "That's not an acceptable way to treat other people, Kiba-chan."

And she looks so disappointed with him that he could cry. _Sorry, sorry, sorry, stop looking so sad, Neechan!_ "But Neechan!"

"No buts." But she's forgiven him, 'cause she ruffled his hair, and she'll forgive him more if he does what she says. "You can't say that everyone else's opinions are wrong, you know. You've gotta let them have their opinions. Sasuke loves his brother very much, and you love me very much Do you like it when Sasuke-chan wants you to love his Niisan?"

"NO!" That's such a horrible thought that he has to cling to Neechan's legs."I don't ever want to love his stupid Niisan. I want to go to the kennels with Neechan." _Don't wanna be here. Here is bad._

"Then why would Sasuke-chan want to love me?" She pries him off of her legs. "You don't want to love his Niisan."

Maybe that makes a little sense. Not a lot of sense, but still a little sense, and Neechan wanted an apology anyway.

"I s'pose you can like your Niisan 'nd m'sorry about the song. But Neechan's still better!" _And Neechan's still mine and not yours._

* * *

He visits Stupid Sasuke's house shortly after this. Neechan has lemon candies so it's okay, and he has a pocketful by the time that they arrive.

"Hello, Fugaku-san. Mikoto-san." And then Neechan is bowing and forcing him to bow too.

"Neechan!" He wriggles and resists. "Kaa-san says we shouldn't have to bow to _anyone._ Why're you doing it left and right?"

"Kiba-chan...A bow is a symbol of respect, and while we don't have to respect anyone at home because we're all of us equal at home, we are not at home right now Kiba-chan." Neechan kneels so that they're eye level, and keeps on explaining. "We're in the Uchiha District. While we're here we should follow their rules."

Kiba frowns. "That's weird. We aren't them." _We're Inuzukas. That's what we are. Not Uchihas._

"We would like them to respect our rules when they visit our home." Neechan smiles, and ruffles his hair. "You wouldn't like it if everyone bowed to you, right? They like it the other way around."

"I still think it's weird." Why would anyone like other people bowing at them? Why would it matter? Just listen to what they have to say. "But if that's the way they like it here." And he bows, exactly like Neechan did, so everything's all good. "Hello Fugaku-san. Mikoto-san." According to Neechan, this means that they're all friends now. "We can be friends now!"

And then he's going to talk to the first Tou-san that he's ever properly met. Miko-san looks pretty, but he already knows how Kaa-sans feel about people. He could ask Kaa-san about how she felt whenever he wants.

He's watched other people talk to their Tou-sans. They went out to do things like train or eat food together. He's visited his Tou-san again, by himself, but it's not the same without Neechan or the pictures. Tou-san has shiny hair that's almost white, and eyes like the sky, but that's all he knows.

He doesn't know if Tou-san would like him very much, or anything at all. Sometimes he suspects that Neechan's so nice because Tou-san taught her, which would mean that Tou-san wouldn't like him very much because sometimes Kiba is angry and mean.

"What's it like to be a Tou-san?" He plays with Fuga-san's hands, because he's not really sure what to do with his own, so he traces some patterns on the palms, and notes the little scars and things, and flips them over to do the same to the back.

 _Did Tou-san have scars on his hands?_ He doesn't know. It's just another of a lot of things he doesn't know about Tou-san.

"Why do you ask, Inuzuka-kun?" Fuga-san sounds concerned.

Kiba frowns. "I'm Kiba, not Inuzuka-kun." And since Fuga-san's asked, the question's gotta be important. He can't mess this up, gotta say the right thing this time. "Don't have a Tou-san. Wondered what it was like."

"I'm sure that your Tou-san is very proud of you and your sister, Kiba-kun as I am proud of my sons." Fuga-san doesn't sound much like Kiba's imagined Tou-san to sound like, but he does sound like he's saying what he thinks.

"You think so?" Kiba considers it. _Tou-san might be proud of us. Might be. Fuga-san even said so._ "You're actually very nice, Fuga-san." And suddenly Neechan's words make sense now. "That's what Neechan meant by different people are similar too!" He races off towards the scent of Stupid Sasuke. "Hey, hey, Stupid Sasuke! Are you a nice person too?"

Stupid Sasuke protests that he isn't stupid, but Kiba's got a pocketful of lemon candies that he can share, and knowing Tou-san might be proud of him is enough to prompt him to.

"Wait, Niisan gave me one of these once." Stupid Sasuke looks over. "Where'd you get these? I couldn't find out where he got them from."

Kiba frowns, and pokes his shoulder. "Cause I got them, Stupid. 'Nd I gave you the last one. They're special. Only Neechan knows where to get them."

Sasuke pops one in his mouth. "Thanks. Suppose you aren't terrible."

"'F course I'm not!"

Sasuke is still stupid, but his Tou-san's nice, and his Kaa-san's pretty, and Fuga-san had answered a very important question, and he hasn't said anything a meanie would yet, so Kiba can be nice to him, and pass him another lemon candy.

* * *

Neechan goes away soon after, and he goes back to the park by himself this time.

"You're Kiba, right?" It's Sasuke.

"Yeah." He supposes that Sasuke's never really learned his name what with the whole stupid and meanie thing going on and all. "That's me."

Sasuke flops down beside him. "You want to build a sandcastle?" He seems pretty blue too. "Would build one with Niisan but he's always busy, and now he's gone and not even Shisui-nii's home. Kaa-san's got something to do and Tou-san's busy too, 'cause they're always always busy. And sometimes you build nice castles." He adds as if this is an afterthought.

"Neechan's gone too." Kiba offers. "And Cousin Ashi's injured and stuff." He tilts his head back and looks at the sky. "And Kaa-san's gone on a mission, so she's not home yet either." His stomach growls. "And there's no one to make food."

Sasuke frowns and looks concerned about the situation. "Can't your Tou-san make food?"

And that's just such a funny thought that Kiba has to laugh wildly and hysterically. _Stone people don't make food, Stupid._ Sasuke looks more concerned, so Kiba offers him a hand, and pulls him up. "C'mon. I'll show you Tou-san." He suspects that Sasuke wouldn't get it if he told him that his Tou-san's a stone person.

They make their way back home, and Kiba takes the beaten track down to where Tou-san is.

"Your Tou-san's _here_?" Sasuke sounds a little horrified. "But this is-"

"Mmmhmm." Kiba hums a song he'd learned from Neechan under his breath and brushes away some of the dead grass next to Tou-san's stone. "Tou-san's been here for forever, but Neechan tells stories 'bout him sometimes."

When he looks back at Sasuke, Sasuke looks like he's about to cry. "But that's _terrible._ " The other boy whispers. "Who do you ask about-about people and life and stuff?"

Kiba shrugs. "Neechan knows lots of stuff." And Kaa-san knows some more, and Cousin Ashi'll answer questions sometimes.

It's Sasuke who grabs his hand this time. "C'mon. Kaa-san's got lots of food in the fridge and my Tou-san can be your Tou-san too." Sasuke pauses for a moment. "I'm not sure you'd want him though. Don't think anyone would volunteer to have a Tou-san like mine." He leans in. "He's mean sometimes, and doesn't like me."

Kiba blinks. "But he said he was proud of you. He smelled like he meant it!" And Fuga-san had been real nice too.

Maybe Sasuke isn't right in the head. Some people are like that. But he said something about food, and Kiba really is very hungry...so it's okay. Besides, maybe Sasuke has the right of it, Fuga-san is his Tou-san after all.

* * *

Sasuke does not have the right of it, Kiba learns, one casual afternoon when Neechan is still gone, and Sasuke has jobs to do for Miko-san.

Fuga-san is home though, so that's where Kiba goes to look for him.

Kiba slides the door open, and tiptoes his way into the room. It's not a quiet enough tiptoe because Fuga-san looks up from his work. "Yes?"

"Nothing." Kiba tells him, precisely, because Fuga-san likes that sort of thing. Being precise that is, not the nothing part. Far as he knows, Fuga-san likes lots of things. "Just didn't want to be alone."

"I see." Fuga-san is again engrossed in whatever he's reading.

Kiba scoots over and sits on his feet, head on Fuga-san's lap. "Kiba-kun?" _He wants to know why._

"Kaa-san's busy." He says. "And Neechan is gone. And Sasuke's doing something not fun."

Fuga-san sighs, and runs a hand through Kiba's hair without a second thought. _He is nice. You just have to ask._ "Will you promise not to be distracting?"

It's really not much to ask. "Is finger painting distracting?" With Fuga-san, it's always best to be sure.

"Yes." Like he thought, it's always best to be sure with Fuga-san, 'cause he might be distracting even if he didn't mean it.

"'Kay." He closes his eyes, and lets Fuga-san keep playing with his hair. "Sleep then." _Fuga-san is nice._ He decides. _He even smells nice, and that means he's truthful 'bout stuff and everything._

He's just gotten into a nice doze, which isn't the same as being asleep, but it's pretty close when Miko-san walks in.

Her walking's really quiet, even when she doesn't try to be, so she has to have been a ninja too. "Anata?" A beat of silence, and then a squeal. "Oh, Anata...you really are cute aren't you."

Kiba blinks lazily. Oh. He drooled on Fuga-san's lap. He tries to wipe it away a bit with his sleeve. "Sorry, Fuga-san." He mutters and doesn't look up. "Didn't mean that."

Fuga-san says nothing, but he doesn't smell angry. Miko-san giggles. "Oh, don't worry about it, Kiba-chan." She pinches his cheek. "Aren't you a cute one?"

Kiba blinks at her. _Not cute one. Cutest. Neechan says so._ "Cutest." He nods firmly, and then remembers that he really shouldn't do that in other people's houses, especially since he's been caught drooling people. "Not cute at all."

Miko-san blinks once, and bursts into side splitting laughter. "Oh, he's just like a little version of Kouga-kun." She's both happy and sad. She's laughing and crying. "Doesn't he seem that way, anata? Who else would say something like cutest and then not cute at all right after one another?"

"Hn." Fuga-san seems a bit sad as well. Kiba has no idea who Kouga-kun is, but whoever he is, he clearly isn't around anymore. _Like Tou-san._ He thinks. Maybe there's a graveyard for Uchihas too, where they put all the people who went away and didn't come back.

But then Miko-san is offering him food, and he forgets to think about Kouga-kun at all. Miko-san makes better food than Kaa-san or Cousin Ashi, and Sasuke's back, so they can think of something fun to do instead of wandering around in the park.

* * *

"So that's why fishing is fun?" Kagen-san's got a long rod with a line and a hook attached to it, and he's volunteering to take Kiba and Sasuke down to the river. "And why're we going fishing?"

"Because you boys need to learn to sit still instead of chasing the cats around the district." Kagen-san smiles and is kind though, so Kiba doesn't mind the slightest.

Sitting still doesn't sound fun though, and Sasuke says so. "Don't want to sit still." He kicks the dirt before him and it throws up a big puff of dust.

Kiba attempts to kick up more dust, and is rewarded with a smaller cloud that he frowns at. Fuga-san had yelled at Sasuke but not him about the yowling cats. And yeah, maybe they were distracting, but it was Kiba's idea, and he'd even said so. No dice.

Fuga-san yelled at Sasuke 'cause he's not a guest and should know better. And suddenly Kiba gets why Sasuke thinks he's mean and not fun and all that. Fuga-san can seem really mean when he's yelling, but that's only 'cause he doesn't yell much. Privately, Kiba thinks that Fuga-san smelled a bit afraid of something too, when he'd seen Sasuke and Kiba trying to go up walls. "We could find a new plan for the cat." He gestures, because the conversation needs gestures. "Mean, we can't expect it to run down the street. It might go up the walls again."

Trying to go up walls wasn't fun, and was one of the reasons Fuga-san had decided that he needed to intervene. It's best not to go up walls again.

"You mean, like make the cat go somewhere else instead of the walls? How do we do that?" At least Sasuke isn't so gloomy anymore. It's better that way.

"Maybe we don't need it make it stop going up walls. We just need to hit it." Kiba frowns. "Kagen-san, is there a paint ball blow pipe?"

"Nah." Kagen-san ruffles both of their hair, and Kiba has to smooth it back down. Neechan wouldn't match with him if he didn't do that. Gotta match with Neechan, that's how everyone knows that Neechan's _his_ Neechan. "But you boys could make one."

"That's a great idea!" It really is. He knows what blow pipes are like. Cousin Ashi had some in her room, but none of them are big enough for paint balls. "We can make little paint balls and hit the cat with them!"

Sasuke looks equally enthused. Now, the only thing is how to lose Kagen-san and not go fishing so there's no boring sitting around time.

"Tell you what." Kagen-san cuts in. "Sit with me and fish for a bit, and I'll help you two make the blow pipe."

Kiba blinks. "How long're we sitting?"

"Yeah, how long're we waiting?" Sasuke seems to have forgotten all about Fuga-san's yelling, which is really what Kiba had wanted, 'cause pouting Sasuke's the worst Sasuke, worse than even Snobby Stupid Sasuke.

"Hmmm." Kagen-san taps his chin. "Seven fish. We catch seven fish, and you'll each get one, and we can start the blow pipe."

"Five fish." Everyone knows you're not suppose to take the first offer. That's how the seven people ended up going on the journey to destroy the ring. If the chakra ring wasn't taken, shouldn't have needed to throw it in a fire mountain. Neechan was good at explaining these, and Kiba's even better at listening.

"Seven fish." So Kagen-san knows about the stories too then.

Kiba pauses by the river bank, crosses his arms, and frowns real hard. "Five fish!" _No take backs! Five fish is lots to sit still for._

"Alright, alright, you win. Five fish." Kagen-san throws up his hands with a laugh that proves he's not really frustrated.

"Yay!" And then they sit down to fish.

* * *

He doesn't know exactly when he starts fighting with Neechan, or why he's so upset that he doesn't get three puppies. _Neechan is special, that's why she gets three puppies. No one else has three puppies._ But he can't help it, he screams and wails and wants to know why Neechan's sort of special isn't something that he can touch. He knows Neechan is a special special, that she isn't the sort of special that other people are, but he wants it. He _wants it so bad._

 _I want to be special too._

When he and Neechan walked the streets, the whispers that follow them still say prodigy. Prodigy and her little brother. Most of the time Kiba doesn't mind. He likes to know that Neechan is special, that she's the best, but he wants to just as good and he's never just as good.

He's always a mile short.

And Neechan herself doesn't help it. Neechan isn't mean about it, it's just that the things she tells him doesn't help.

He would like it more if she said that he was an awful little brat like Kaa-san does sometimes. Would be okay to be angry if she said he was mean and yelled at him back, but Neechan doesn't.

Neechan tells him that she loves him, that she's leaving, and she's always leaving-

And he can't think anymore. He hates it. He hates the leaving.

Neechan is special, so she has to leave. Not even Sasuke's Niichan leaves this often, and Sasuke's always groaning and whining about it whenever he does. For once in his life, Kiba wants to scream until someone understands.

And like all the times he can't think, he flees the house, to the graveyard. To Tou-san who doesn't talk to him, but also doesn't seem to ever judge him. "T-tou-san." He curls up behind the stone.

It's cold and it presses into his back, and it's not like the stone is a man at all.

Everyone says that Tou-san would certainly love him, because Tou-san loved Neechan very much. _But that doesn't mean he'd be proud of me. That doesn't mean it._

He gasps and snivels. "Are you proud of me?" It's not as loud as he'd normally make it. It's not as self assured, not as bright and vibrant as he's supposed to be, but stones don't talk, and he doesn't know.

Doesn't know anything about Tou-san particularly. Just knows that it doesn't make any amount of sense.

Just knows that Tou-san makes Neechan and Kaa-san sad. Just knows that Tou-san isn't here, has never been here and he hates it so.

Other people had Tou-sans who are here. He has this stone that can't talk to him.

"Are you proud of me?" He asks the stone once again, and can't find an answer.

"Cub?" It's Kaa-san who sets a hand on his shoulder, and pulls him in for a hug. "Cub, why're you down here?"

"T-tou-san. He isn't here." And he can't help it, the sobs rip from him loud and wailing and he isn't a little boy, but still it hurts. "And he's-" He can't explain. He can't explain that Tou-san isn't someone that he loves.

It's hard to love a stone in the ground. It's hard to care about someone who has never cared. It's hard to love the person who makes the people he loves sad all the time.

"Oh, Cub." Kaa-san walks with him back to the house, and he listens to her heartbeat, strong and firm. "He's proud of you, I know it."

And maybe Kaa-san does. Maybe she does, but Kiba doesn't.

And then Neechan could have died, and everything goes away. It doesn't matter if Tou-san liked her more, or that he isn't there, or that Neechan is special in ways that Kiba really isn't.

It only matters that Neechan came back even though he said that he rather she didn't.

Neechan came home even though she was leaving, and she didn't become an absent empty stone like Tou-san. He'll never ask for anything so much again.

But that night he slides open the door to the shrine, and asks that even if Neechan is leaving all the time, that she always comes back home too.

* * *

When he meets Akamaru, he understands. When he meets Akamaru, he meets the other half of himself. He knows it as soon as a white puppy detaches from the crowd, and the frantic barking is so much _clearer_ than anything he's heard before. "Boy! Boy! Boy!"

He looks up at Neechan. "Can I pick him?"

She smiles, and she smells happy, like cinnamon and warm bread and lemon candy. "Is he your friend, Kiba-chan?"

Kiba nods. "Can hear him best of all the puppies. He says 'Boy! Boy! Boy!" The other puppies might mutter and he might be able to hear them, but it isn't best. It is faded and different. The white puppy he picked up is best.

"You'll have to tell him your name." Neechan pats the puppy once on the head. "Then he'll know to call you that."

Kiba turns toward the puppy. "I'm Kiba." He announces. "What's your name?" It's good to ask other people their names, and what Neechan says is nearly always right anyway.

The puppy tilts his head to the side. "Name?" It's like he doesn't know what his name is.

Kiba looks back at me. "What's his name?"

"Akamaru." Neechan says, in one of those strange moments where it seems like she knows everything there is to know with complete certainty. "Your name is Akamaru."

"Akamaru?" The puppy-no, Akamaru-barks, and looks up at Neechan curiously. "Who're you?"

The Triplets mob Neechan in an attempt to keep her safe, to mark her as theirs, and Kiba lets them. He's always going to be the best loved brother, cause the Triplets are a part of Neechan like Neechan's hands and feet are a part of Neechan, and that's different and things.

He tucks Akamaru close to his chest. "At any rate, Akamaru's mine!"

Nechan laughs. "Yes, Kiba-chan. Akamaru is your partner."

Everything is right in the world.

* * *

"Hah! So now my siblings are better than yours." Sasuke's standing with his arms crossed, and eyes delighted when Kiba makes his way to the district one day.

"Why?" Kiba steps up, and they stand, toe to toe, head to head, nose to nose. "Neechan's still so better than your Niichan." And Itachi-nii isn't that bad really, but still, no one in the world compares to Neechan.

"Cause I get to call her my Neechan now too!" Sasuke smiles, and it's the one that says he's better and everything. "And you don't get to call Niisan, Niisan."

And now that's the most unfair thing Kiba's ever heard. "Say that again, Stupid!" He grabs Sasuke by the collar, and they roll around in the dirt, kicking and punching.

Kiba considers biting him, but he doesn't need to. He has Sasuke pinned beneath him, and his fist is raised to punch him in the face, like he deserves it, to say that Kiba's gotta share Neechan, when Neechan's one of the few pack members he's got.

Maybe he could share, but Sasuke isn't volunteering to share, he's saying that Kiba's gotta give Neechan to him.

And no, Kiba's never going to do that in a million years, which is why he's considering giving Sasuke two black eyes, so that they'd be matching but-

"Boys!" Fuga-san's standing on the porch, arms crossed. He looks angry. He smells angry. Kiba decides that he is angry. "This is nothing to fight over. Sasuke apologize to Kiba, you are not taking his Neechan, and Kiba-" A pause in the air. "Come to my study when you're done apologize to Sasuke. You are a little boy, not a wild animal."

And Sasuke's upset again. "Sorry." He mutters, kicks up a clod of dirt, and goes away before Kiba can apologize.

"I'm not sorry!" Kiba screams after him. Serves him right for trying to take Neechan, but something heavy settles into his stomach anyway. Sasuke is his best friend, even though he's weird and whiny and sometimes mean, and _wrong._ Sasuke's his best friend, but he doesn't wanna give Neechan to him.

He turns around, and trudges inside.

It's time to go talk to Fuga-san and get yelled at.

* * *

"Kiba-kun?" Fuga-san's sitting on the floor, which doesn't happen very often. "Come here?" He raises a hand, and Kiba walks towards him on leaden feet.

He stops before he actually gets inside Fuga-san's arm range though, 'cause surely this time, Fuga-san is angry with him. Fuga-san loves Sasuke a bunch, and he'd been about to give Sasuke matching black eyes. "Sasuke ran away before I could say sorry. But 'm not sorry."

Fuga-san sighs. "Why is that, Kiba-kun?"

"'Cause Neechan's mine." And Fuga-san's moved forward, and holds him now. It's not the least bit like he's angry. It's almost like he's sad or guilty, but he hasn't got anything to be guilty about. "N can't give Neechan away." And now he's crying again, cause he doesn't _want. Doesn't want._ "Haven't got-" He scrubs his hands over his face in an attempt to stop crying.

It doesn't help.

"Neechan tells me stories." It's more than that. "And I tell Tou-san stories too, but he's not proud of me, he's not there at _all._ " Other people can say what they want, but he doesn't have a Tou-san. He doesn't have and Sasuke does, but Sasuke's always complaining about his even though Kiba would be over the moon if Fuga-san was _his_ Tou-san and it just-"It's not _fair._ " _It's never fair._

 _Why does he get what I want?_ It's not a fair thing for him to think. But it is what he thinks, and the thought makes him bruised and hurt worse than scraped knees.

"I'm proud of you." Fuga-san pulls him closer, and ruffles his hair. "I'm proud of you, son." And Kiba loses it completely.

"You mean it?" He could have heard wrong. Maybe Fuga-san means to say Kiba-kun. Maybe he didn't mean to call him son. "You mean it?"

"I mean it." A pause, a beat, and Kiba sobs into his shirt. "Your Neechan calls me Chichi. That is what Sasuke meant."

Oh. _Oh._ It wasn't the same thing after all. And-and- "Fuga- _tou_." Kiba takes a shaky breath and peels himself away. "I-" And he's speechless, gratitude spilling over his lips but he can do nothing more than open and close, open and close his mouth like he doesn't know what to feel or what to do. He knows exactly what he feels. He knows, but it won't come out. "Fuga-tou." He says again. "I-"

Fuga-tou smiles, and opens his arms, and it's like he understood everything all along. Kiba dives forward.

The arms that hold him are strong, and he's safe, safe, safe. "Thank you. Thank you. Thankyouthankyouthan-"

"I know."

* * *

The first time Kiba meets Yamanaka Ino, he is _not_ prepared. He's seen her before, yeah, sad and all alone in the flower shop watering things and watching the outside, but he's never gone in, and he's never talked to her before.

But he calls her Fairy Girl in his head, because she looks like a sad and lost flower fairy. Her sad face makes him uncomfortable whenever he passes, but there'd always been something to do, and maybe she wasn't supposed to leave?

He'd hurried quickly whenever he had to walk past the flower shop.

But today, he'd been talking to the Ossan down at the flower shop because Neechan'd gone away again that morning and she'd be away for absolutely _ages_ and he hates it but he can't ask her to stay. And Ossan of the Flower Shop is so not helpful, like why would he say something like "I don't think your Neechan has a favorite flower?"

He protests this of course, because Neechan is down here so much that she's gotta have a favorite of all these pretty things. He's just a teeny tiny bit ashamed that he doesn't know what it is, that's all, and Ossan could do him a big favor and tell him what it is.

And then Fairy Girl appears. "That's not what flowers are _for._ " And he is captivated. There's a small smile playing on her lips and he can't help but notice that it crinkles the corners of her eyes just a little bit-and oh, was that a smudge of dirt on her cheek? This is the first time he's seen her happy.

"What?" _She really is a fairy._ He thinks to himself, completely and utterly stunned. _Wait 'til I tell Neechan that I met a fairy._ But that thought's really silly, because fairies aren't real, and the girl is so real so she isn't a fairy and- _I've just stood here blinking for half a minute. She must think I'm stupid._

But he's an Inuzuka, and Inuzukas don't run and hide from things. He squares his shoulders.

She takes his hand. _Wow. She has really small hands._ "What are you trying to say?" She asks him.

Kiba frowns. "Flowers say things?" _Didn't know that. Is that why Neechan always smells like different ones?_ "I just wanna give flowers."

"That's really dumb. You wouldn't want to offend people by giving them bad flowers right?" She stands there, hands on her hips, and yeah she's bossy, but she seems to know so much _more. Can be bossy if you know things._ "Cactus flowers mean lust, do you wanna say that you wanna kiss the person you're giving them to?"

"Eww. Who'd want to do _that?_ " The mental images don't bear thinking about.

"Miko-baa might." Akamaru is so not helping.

He didn't need that thought at all. "Akamaru, that's gross."

And Fairy Girl giggles, and it's clear and sweet, and he likes it when she's happy even if the mental images that had hit him the moment before were terrible. Blagh. He never wants to think about those ever again.

"Since you don't want that, isn't it better to know what you want to say?" She takes him by the hand to show him the flowers. "What did you want the person to know?"

Kiba looks down at his feet and shuffles back and forth. "What him to know that he's 'preciated." He says at last. "Fuga-tou not Tou-san, but still _Tou." Still Tou. Best Tou. Better Tou, even if I can't call him Tou-san._

Fairy Girl tilts her head to the side, and considers it. "Rosemary for remembrance. Daffodils for respect, and anemones for sincerity. You'll have sincere respect for him for always."

His eyes grow wide. _She said everything, and it was so fast I didn't even have time to think about colors and things._ "That's so brilliant."

"Akamaru, isn't she brilliant? Isn't she spectacular? Don't we have to be her friend?"

Akamaru agrees. Akamaru thinks it's a good idea.

"Brilliant." But he's forgotten the names, and surely she has to think he's stupid now. "Will you show me what the flowers you mentioned are? The-the rose thing and the aneno-whatsits."

She laughs. "Rosemary and anemones and daffodils." She loops an arm through his, and leads him down the rows. 'See, these ones are anemones." She picks up a cluster of white flowers and hands them to him.

He nods. "Un. Un." _Gotta be careful. They're really fragile like the Fairy Girl._

And while he's thinking, Ossan of the Flower Shop and the Fairy Girl seems to have gotten into a discussion or something about her going outside. _Fairy Girl wants to go outside._

"Hey Ossan! 'M sure that, that-" He flounders, turning back to her. _Can't call you Fairy Girl. That won't be-_ Well, he doesn't know what it won't be, but he knows that it will be _wrong._ "Hey, what's your name anyway?"

"Ino." Did he mention she has a pretty giggle? "My name's Ino."

"Yeah!" He rallies himself. "'M sure that Ino-chan'll be great if she came."

"What if she gets hurt?" Ossan seems to think that he's scary. He isn't scary. Kiba's seen Kaa-san. That's scary. Ossan doesn't even come close.

Kiba straightens his shoulders and bares his teeth, like he's supposed to, because he's a wolf, and that's what wolves do. "She won't get hurt. I'll bet my life on it."

"Kiba, Kiba, you shouldn't do that." He pushes Akamaru's thoughts away. For Fairy Girl- _For Ino-chan-_ He corrects himself. He will.

"Your life?" Ossan doesn't seem to believe him.

Kiba crosses his arms over his chest, and frowns. _I'm saying what I mean. So you better believe me._ "I'm betting _my_ life not Akamaru's. I can afford that." He can. He can afford that.

"There's no need to be so serious. I believe you'll be kind to my cosmos." Ossan chuckles, but he still smells like he thinks Kiba's lying. Kiba's not lying.

"Fuga-tou says that I shouldn't say anything I don't mean." Kiba finds the money to pay for his flowers. _Not lying. Not. A. Joke._ "Said was willing to bet my life. Meant it. Wasn't a metaphor."

* * *

He learns everything about No-chan in the space of a day. He learns that she likes plum candies, but thinks lemon candies are good too, that she doesn't know how to swim, that sometimes people are mean to her, that she doesn't like to be called ugly, that she knows lots about flowers, that Ossan of the Flower Shop is _her_ Tou-san, that she thinks Fuga-tou is scary and Sasuke is acceptable, and that she likes him, Kiba, a bunch.

And she really likes pretty things, and she's really like a butterfly over flowers.

And that she's really pretty. It's not because of anything in particular, just that she knows a lot, that she laughs really pretty, and that pretty is just something that she _is._

 _I've gotta bring her home to see Kaa-san and Neechan and everyone._

He's already shown her to Fuga-tou and Miko-baa, and the Uchihas. He wants to show her to Kaa-san and Neechan too, but Neechan is gone again, and he can't and-

A flash of silver catches his eye. He dives across to a market stall, and drags Sasuke and No-chan with him. "Hey, Baasan!" He points towards two butterflies that really ought to belong to No-chan. "How much are those?" _They'll fit best with her hair, cause her hair is gold'n'yellow, and those are silver'n'gray._

Baasan of the Hair Pin Stand names a price that's just about his allowance from Kaa-san for a month. He could buy about a million paintballs for the blow pipe with those. Well, maybe not a million paintballs, but lots of paintballs.

But those pins belong in No-chan's hair. They really do. "I'll take them and don't wrap them."

He digs around his pockets, pulls out a chewy dog bone wallet, and grimly counts out a month's allowance. They're good hair pins, and they're just as pretty as she deserves. "Turn around. We need to stick them in your hair." And now that he's got them, he's nervous. Maybe she doesn't like them, maybe she'll think he's silly and laugh at him, but she doesn't.

She turns around.

He passes the hairpins to Sasuke. "Hold them for a moment." He gathers her hair up in his hands, and twists them like he's seen ladies do, even though it doesn't seem to work quite well. He sticks the pins in anyway. "There." He says, with finality. "Now No-chan's really a butterfly."

She blushes. Sasuke scoffs. Akamaru agrees, and suddenly he remembers that it's getting kinda late. "And I 'pose that No-chan has to go home." _Can take you to see Kaa-san and Neechan and Cousin Ashi and the pack and the kennels another day, I suppose._

Sasuke peels himself away. "Niichan!" He shouts and waves. "Sorry, Kiba-nii!" He tosses over his shoulder, racing through the crowd towards Itachi-nii. "I've gotta go home with Niichan!"

 _Well don't let me stop you._ He takes her hand. "Well, we should probably go back."

"Yeah." No-chan agrees, and smiles bigger than he's seen her.

 _Made the best decision._ He decides. _Made No-chan really happy today._

* * *

"We're back!" He opens the door for her when they get to the flower shop, and she practically dances over the floor around the flowers and back around to him.

"Touchan!" She laughs and giggles, and in the dim light, Kiba thinks she looks giddy.

She'd been so sad looking when he saw her before, sitting in the flower shop by herself.

"Ino!" Ossan of the Flower Shop sounds like he disapproves a real lot though. "You've been gone the entire day."

"Touchan!" She giggles. "I've got so much to tell you about." She waves her hands around at everything, and everything and-he's glad she's happy, glad he had a part in it. "Kiba-kun and Sasuke-kun had a Yakitori eating contest. We built the biggest sand castle, and oh! We spent so much time down at the lake too! And, and-"

"It looks like we have to thank your new friend." Ossan of the Flower Shop looks up at him, and he still seems disapproving, which is bad, but still.

Kiba shifts from foot to foot for a moment. _Does he gotta be so uncomfortable?_ "Not a problem, Ossan!" He laughs, and rubs the back of his neck with a hand. "I gotta go to dinner, yeah? I'll be back tomorrow, No-chan!" He says, and then flees through the door. _Yeah, I'll be back and you can talk and sing and laugh everyday._

* * *

He doesn't actually go to dinner though. He goes down to the graveyard to talk to Tou-san about things. He still has to talk to Tou-san, because he has Fuga-tou to say he's proud now, and Tou-san didn't deserve to be lonely.

Privately, Kiba tells himself it's not Tou-san's fault that he's a rock. It just sorta is, you know, in that sort of way that water's wet and Akamaru's good and Neechan's best and Kaa-san's strong, and Sasuke's his best friend. Tou-san's a rock. That's just how it is.

"And so-so, I met her you know." He's gesturing, and maybe Tou-san can hear him, since the air is heavy tonight. "And No-chan's real pretty, like the prettiest girl in the world. You might like her a bit." He brushes the leaves away, and roots out the weeds above Tou-san's grave. "And she knows lots and lots 'bout flowers, and Sasuke doesn't think she's too bad."

The grave is silent.

He's not sure what to say next. Instead, he picks himself up, and goes to the shrine with Akamaru. Maybe if he lights some incense like he's seen Kaa-san do on the days that she's too sad, it'll help with his desire to talk to Tou-san tonight. He's tried this before, and it doesn't always work, but it's not a weird thing.

The weird thing is that there's a man sitting on the steps of the shrine, glowing faintly in the dying light of the evening. He has his head bowed, white hair falling over his clasped hands as he sits there, unmoving, but sort of moving at the same time.

"Strange." Akamaru whines and wriggles deeper into his jacket. "Strange, Kiba."

Kiba agrees. The man is weird. It's not anything in particular that he can tell. It's that the man's contradictory. He smells like earth, like fire, like wind, except wind doesn't have a smell, and he's not hot like fire, and he hasn't got anything living in him like earth. He doesn't smell person like.

"Who're you, Ossan?" Kiba asks, feeling a little braver than he is.

Because honest, Ossan on the Shrine Steps doesn't smell bad, even if he doesn't smell like a person.

Ossan on the Shrine Steps laughs, and raises his head. "Who do you think I am, Kiba-chan?"

Ossan knows his name then. Kiba considers it, considers Ossan's white hair, which isn't what makes him old exactly, it's more like Ossan just _is and has always been_ , considers his bright gold eyes, and the two red fangs on his face.

Only pack has fangs. Kaa-san said so, but he doesn't know this Ossan, and he thought he knew every member of the pack.

"You're 'n Inuzuka, like me." And if Ossan's pack, then he isn't bad at all, so Kiba doesn't feel scared the slightest, even though Ossan's so _weird._ He plops himself down on the steps beside Ossan. "But you're super old 'nd I dunno you yet, so sorry."

Ossan chuckles, and ruffles his hair. "I haven't been around for a long time, Kiba-chan." His touch is weighty and heavy and not like how he'd expected, cause it's so human despite how not person like Ossan had smelled.

"Why're you back then, Jiji?" Cause well, if Ossan's pack, can't really keep calling him Ossan. He's more important than the Ossan at the Flower Shop if he's pack and stuff. So he has to be Jiji. Kiba hasn't had one before though, cause Jiji's a rock, kinda like how Tou-san's a rock. "If you left and stuff. Cause people that go away don't come back." He doesn't count the rocks. Those aren't exactly people.

"Mmm." Jiji seems to be thinking about it, his cheek cupped in his hand as he plays with the ends of his long white hair. "Maybe it's safe to say that I haven't found a reason to be here." And Jiji's gold eyes seem to be watching him for something.

"You don't mind being called Jiji?" Kiba crosses his arms and looks away, cause Jiji's eyes are uncomfortable, like they see even thoughts and things. Neechan gets like that sometimes, but she has to _try._ Jiji isn't trying. "Most people don't like being called old."

Jiji laughs, and it is comforting, cheery, bright, and pokes his cheek. "I'm older than your Jiji, so it's perfectly good that you call me Jiji."

"How old're you then?" If Jiji's older than Kaa-san's Tou-san then he has to be absolutely _ancient._

"Hmmm..." Jiji seems to be consider it. "Forever." He smiles, and his fangs are sharp and sparkly in the not light. "I was old when the stars were young, and I will be the same when they all go out."

Sitting there, Kiba almost believes it. "Nobody's older'n stars, Jiji." Not even Neechan. Not even Kaa-san. Not even Reiya-baasan who's plenty old.

"But I am." Jiji chuckles at his shock. "But I see that's too much for you." A hand ruffles his hair. "Your Tou-san loves you, and he thinks of you often." Jiji says this as if it just is, which is how he says everything really, so Kiba's stopped being surprised.

"And know this Kiba-chan, you're destined for great things." Jiji winks, and his smile is wicked sharp. "And if I'm not forever, how do I do this?"

He disappears into a puff of light and a shower of sparks. Even his smell is gone.

And that might just be the weirdest thing about Jiji. "Just 'cause you can disappear quick doesn't mean you're older'n than stars, Jiji." Kiba mutters as he stands and brushes himself off. "Just means you know cool ninja tricks."

Somewhere in his head, he can hear Jiji laughing.

* * *

"Those candle flames were like the lives of men. So fragile. So deadly. Each bearing a seed of destruction so potent it could tumble cities and dash kings to their knees."

-Brandon Sanderson, _The Way of Kings_

* * *

 **A.N.** So I had time, and I was struck by inspiration, and thus this chapter is born, celebrating all the joys and sorrows that is being Inuzuka Kiba. He does have some problems with Kaito's absence, even if it is because of a death, but he's growing up.

Of course, this causes all sorts of problems with his relationship with Sasuke, because Sasuke complains about his (according to Kiba) perfectly present and generally rather nice father when Kiba has to make do with a gravestone. Still, Kiba remains upbeat about most things, because it's really not in his nature to be depressed.

Also, guess who Jiji is? (It's kind of obvious I know, but it's the first time anyone's seen him, so...I'm excited.)

Thank you to everyone who reviewed, and favorited and followed.

I can't do any of this with so much joy without you all.

~Tavina.


	14. Legacy

**A.N. I do not own Naruto.** Thanks to CannibalisticApple for reading the rough draft of this and offering suggestions!

* * *

"The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is oft interred with their bones."

-William Shakespeare, _Julius Caesar_

* * *

The deepest level of RnD is rather warm after the walk from the tower through the April wind. He is getting too old for the chill of spring. Getting too tired of seeing treachery and betrayal at every corner from every comer. It weighs on his mind

He has left it too long, filled with wicked hope. He does not want to believe that his boy is gone forever. He had wanted there to be a way to get him back. _Another chance. Another chance to prove that he knows who I am. I'll give him one last chance._

 _If he calls me Shishou, all will be forgiven. He could have sold a state secret under duress. He won't have to die for that._

It is stupid of him to bargain with his heart. It had never loved many, and it does not want to accept the reality of the situation. Kai is long dead. Whoever is on the other side of that slab of wood is just wearing his skin.

He stands here, outside the imposter's door, and weighs his options. He owes it to his boy to kill the imposter himself, rather than to send someone else to do it.

He owes it to Kaito, but he doesn't know if he wants to. _I was a coward then._

He sets his hand on the door. _I will not be a coward now._ He'd missed his chance then, that day so long ago. This is a different sort of chance, a different choice. He cannot miss it now.

He strides in.

The imposter stands, brushing a strand of white-blond hair out of his eyes. "How can I help you?"

Every word sets his teeth on edge. Since when did Kai speak so politely to the one person who knows him better than anyone else? Since when did Kai want to research the explosion release? His boy hadn't that kekkei genkai. "You are reverse engineering the explosion release from your home country right now, correct?"

The imposter shifts uneasily, his head bowed. Since when did Kai have a problem with meeting his eyes? His boy had never been afraid of him. "Yes, Shimura-sama." _Shimura-sama._

 _Did you know the man you killed called me Shishou?_

 _You can't possibly know._

"Well, your project is to be discontinued immediately." Yes. Discontinued. Like Kai was discontinued by this hollow shell of a man in front of him. Was he in pain when he died? Does he want vengeance?

"But Shimura-sama the project could be helpful to Kono-" _Do not dare speak of Konoha to me. Not after what you've done._

"There will be no help to Konoha by using another weaker country's jutsu." The genjutsu locks the imposter's limbs in place, and he examines the other man carefully. Did Onoki know that this would hurt him the most? Did he know? Is he doing it on purpose?

Iwa has always been weaker than Konoha. It always will be. Onoki cannot hurt him.

He sits the imposter down at the work table. He has thin shoulders, much like, much like Kai did, once upon a time. _Kai is dead._ "Well, it seems as though you've made a very unfortunate accident, Inuzuka Kaito." He tips the clay onto the imposter's lap.

This is not his boy, not Iwa no Kaito, not even Inuzuka Kaito, but let the imposter think that he'd died safe. Let whatever records Iwa make of this think it is an accident.

Blue-gray eyes. Shock. Horror. Hatred.

They cut him open more than the imposter could ever suspect. He hardens his heart. _There will be others. There will be others. There has to something other than this._

His boy left a family behind when he died, and it would be cruel to reveal the betrayal to them, that they'd loved a infiltrator.

He shuts the door behind him and stands there as the room shakes. The scream of pain sounds like Kai's voice. Something in his chest shifts.

He stands there for a moment longer, aware of the sound of feet in the levels above him, and turns and strides down the hall. There is nothing left here for him to do.

* * *

 _It's been a long day. Hiruzen had ignored what was convenient for him to ignore again. Kumo is up to something in Ame, but Hiruzen doesn't have to pay attention to it right this moment, so he can wait until it brews into an international incident._

 _Danzo would rather solve the issue before it festers into a war. Of course, Koharu and Homura hadn't been interested—people don't like being told that their actions will lead to war, and they aren't much different than most people._

 _He swats at the mosquito buzzing next to his ear. The evening air is muggy and hot and his haori sticks to his back, but he has to keep walking. He has a promise to keep, if only to himself._

 _It's been sixteen years since the day the Nidaime died. In the upper reaches of the city there is still a small group who mourn privately for the passing of a great man, Senju Mito among them, but here in Konoha's lowest district, there's no love lost for him. He'd been the one to sign their existence as the red light district into being after all._

 _It hadn't been the best decision in hindsight, but there are no perfect people in this world, and Nidaime-sama had done the best he could at the time with pressure from the Daimyo._

 _He walks faster. He's down here to remind himself who he's fighting for. I have my convictions about Kumo and Ame and Hanzo the Salamander for Konoha because of these people._

 _The Ninth District is as much a part of Konoha as the Tower, perhaps more so. His contemporaries can forget, but he never will. There's still too much he wants to change._

 _"—know that, sir, but please, Kaa-san's sick. We just need another week." A small boy of about six or seven stands before a looming man. An innkeeper and another family who couldn't pay the rent._

 _It's common, but somehow, Danzo comes to a stop a few feet away._

 _Normally, it would an adult begging for an extension on rent. This boy's too young to be begging. But then, that's only his moral compass speaking._

 _"You said the same last month." The innkeeper leans down, dark eyes hard. "I'm not running a free institution, brat. Pay your rent, or get out. I've got mouths to feed."_

 _"I got you the money last month, sir." The boy doesn't back away. Spit slides down his cheek. "I'll get you the rent this month too, sir, I just had to buy Kaa-san medicine this week, and I used up all the money I'd saved. I'm sorry, I'll—"_

 _"You'll get out." The innkeeper uncrosses his arms. "You and your whore mother can get out. You're nothing but trouble."_

 _"Please, sir—" The back of the innkeeper's hand catches the boy across the jaw, and he goes sprawling into the mud like a rag doll._

 _"If I ever see you back here—"_

 _"You won't see him here again." Danzo catches the man's wrist and twists just enough to hurt. He wouldn't normally get involved, but it's been a long day..._

 _It's the anniversary of the Nidaime's death, and seeing this part of his mentor's legacy has always brought a dull ache to his chest. No man is perfect, and it is not as if he knew this would happen when he signed Yoshiwara into existence. The rotting pieces of this godforsaken district beg to differ. Pain is pain. Misery is misery whether or not Nidaime-sama intended it to be._

 _"He's coming with me." In for a penny, in for a pound. He's already ruined this boy's chances to live in this neighborhood at the very least with his impulsive decision to stop the innkeeper from hitting the boy again._

 _"You're welcome to him." The innkeeper spits at his feet. "That foreign brat and his whore mother have been nothing but trouble, taking good food and lodging from Konoha citizens."_

 _Foreign. The boy has pale blonde hair and blue eyes and a rapidly reddening hand print over his left cheek and a slight trace of blood on his lips._

 _Few citizens of Konoha have blonde hair and blue eyes. No matter. No matter._

 _It is not as if a boy no more than six or seven years old would be entrusted with the task of being a spy, and no self respecting spy would end up here, in Yoshiwara being slapped about by a civilian._

 _"Your mother and your things?" He asks while offering the boy a hand._

 _"Kaa-san's in the room still." The boy examines his hand carefully before accepting. Danzo reminds himself that he shouldn't be irritated by this, that there's no reason for this gutter boy to know who he is or why he would want to help._

 _"Then we should tell her that you're moving." He strides past the frozen Innkeeper. The man's finally recognized the hitai-ate on his forehead and realized that he hadn't been spitting at a man to be crossed then._

 _No matter._

 _It is not as if he will go out of his way to kill civilians even if they are terrible human beings._

 _No matter._

 _Hiruzen will try to ignore this too, if he were to bring it up. The state of the orphanage is deplorable. The state of this district is deplorable, but Hiruzen will leave it to the civilians to pass laws._

 _Hiruzen always does._

 _There's too much trust in the goodness of people in Hiruzen's heart. It blinds him too much to the reality of things._

 _"Thank you, sir, but where are we going?" The gutter boy is following him, wincing slightly with each word._

 _The woman in his arms has sunken cheeks, and brittle straw-colored hair. She does not awaken. He's walking too fast for her boy to keep up, and he has to remind himself to slow down. Slow down. Slow down._

 _As much of a realist as he likes to be, he doesn't like being reminded of the Nidaime's failures._

 _"My house." Where else can he bring a boy and a dying woman? He can't just leave them at the hospital. For one thing, it is dumb to think that such a thing would solve their problems, for another, he doesn't think that medicine can help this woman now._

 _"Sir," The boy tugs at his shirtsleeve. "I can't do that, sir." He looks close to tears. "I can't pay rent for a room in your house. We're in the sixth district already, and I don't have the money."_

 _"I don't expect you to." Had Konoha really treated this gutter child so poorly? Can't goodwill be something inexplicable? He'll do—What am I supposed to be doing?— He'll do something. Something. It won't be enough, but it'll be something._

 _"What am I supposed to do, if I'm not paying rent, sir? I can do work. I can clean and cook and there's a lot I can do—"_

 _"Are you not going to step foot over my doorway if you don't know what you have to pay for it?" He half suspects the only reason the boy's still following him is because he still has his mother. There'd been precious little in the way of belongings to bring, but it's very clear that his mother means a good deal to the boy._

 _"Nothing's ever free, sir." The boy glances at his mother's sunken face and wrings his hands together. "And you've helped me out already, and I'm grateful, but I'll have to pay somehow." He swallows thickly and continues. "It's not good to not pay."_

 _"You can wash the dishes after dinner." He didn't drag this boy up here so he could wash dishes—he doesn't know why he dragged this boy up here, doesn't know why he bothered; there are plenty of boys—but if that's what it takes. If that's what it takes, then he'll create some task out of thin air. It doesn't have to be hard._

 _"Just the dishes, sir?" The boy stretches out a hand, but then draws it back. "You'll feed me if I wash your dishes?"_

 _"Yes." No mention of a father. It is likely that the boy doesn't have one anymore. It is common among shinobi families, less so for civilian ones._

 _"Thank you, sir." The boy's more agitated the closer they get to the center of the city. He shifts uneasily on his feet at the intersections, casts worried glances at his mother, and shrinks in on himself the more other people look in their direction._

 _There has to a question that can distract him. What does one say to small boys? Who is he to tell or know? "What's your name?"_

 _"Iwa no...Iwa no Kaito." He has such fearful blue eyes. Shimura Danzo doesn't consider himself a particularly sentimental man, but that doesn't mean he wants children to be afraid of him. It is no crime to be born in a foreign land. He had been born before his parents had moved with the rest of the Shimura clan to Konoha. They'd died in the war. By that metric, he ought to be insulted constantly as well. Yet, he is not. It all depends on power and perception._

 _"Sir, who are you?"_

 _"Shimura Danzo." He does not explain who he is. Likely, it would just make the boy more anxious._

 _His house is on a gated piece of land tucked close to the cliffs. His mother had chosen the location for the shade, and a lovely view of the sunset. He lives half his life in the shadows and the rest in the sun._

 _The door to the garden path is latched. He is still holding the woman in his arms. "Would you open the gate?"_

 _The boy does so, and they pass in._

* * *

It is a cold spring day in April, and the trees outside are heavy with budding flowers, dark branches like claws against the overcast day. The window is open, because he needs the chill, needs the bite of the air to center himself. He'd been to RnD yesterday.

The imposter had been sent to the hospital last night. Now it is morning, and the sky is overcast.

He sets his teacup down on the table. His hands do not shake. Pale blue gray eyes stare into his own when he closes his eyes, no recognition, no relation to the boy he knew. He holds the cup in both hands and tries to block out those eyes.

He hadn't killed his own student. _Kai was gone._ He tells himself. _That was not my boy._

There'd been no recognition. For an imposter who hid himself so well from the rest of his acquaintances, he could not hide from the one man who'd been father and teacher and mentor to the boy he killed.

That boy was gone, and now the imposter is dead. There'd been no way to survive that blast. He hasn't gone out of this room to the hospital to check. He ought to check, keep up the charade, but no. No. Not when the ghosts are thick in the air.

Pale, blue gray eyes haunt the space between his shoulder blades. _Shishou, what did I die for? Why did you kill me?_

 _The imposter killed you._

He picks up the cup with his hands that do not shake and takes another gulp of his tea.

Iwa no Kaito had been dead a long time before today. He'd avenged his student, killed his student's killer.

 _Shishou, will you watch over my daughter? Tsu-chan's choosing Kiho-chan as her godmother, but you're the only family I have so..._

 _Of course, my boy. I'll be glad to watch over your girl._

 _Thank you, Shishou. I'm sure she'll be able to thank you herself someday when she knows how lucky she is._

Is this a memory, or is it the ghost haunting him? Kai had loved his daughter so. The imposter had done well with that. Neither Tsume nor their child suspected a thing amiss. There is that at least. The child will not know the pain of betrayal just yet.

But he'd known. He'd known the moment Kai passed by him in the Tower without a smile or a hint of recognition. He's known the moment Kai opened his mouth and called him Elder Shimura like a distant stranger instead of Shishou. Their relationship since Kai started working in RnD hadn't been frosty enough to make Shishou become Elder Shimura and no matter how terrible matters between them ever got, Kai had always known who he was.

The very fact that he no longer remembered his teacher spoke volumes.

He hadn't wanted to believe it. He hadn't wanted to believe that his boy was gone. The imposter had been frighteningly good at being Kai. He'd raised his eyebrow sarcastically at the comments made by his Nara best friend. A small smile tugging at his lips there, a dreamy look in his blue-gray eyes here, fingers tapping against his desk, a fond air about him when greeting his wife...all those little mannerisms were still there, but the boy he'd loved like his own son was gone.

The determined gutter child with a wicked sense of humor and a vicious mean streak was gone. The imposter remembered nothing of Kai's history with his teacher, didn't even remember that there was such a thing, and he hadn't a choice. Something had sparked out in Iwa, and his boy had disappeared with the light.

He'd given opportunities, had covertly arranged a mindwalk, had stood outside that door and made bargains that meant he was a coward, nothing. There was nothing but tampered memories. There was nothing but absence where a brilliant young man had once stood.

He takes another sip of his cold tea.

His hands do not shake.

* * *

 _They are in the middle of dinner, and the boy—his name is Kaito, he reminds himself—when one of the ANBU comes to call._

 _"Hokage-sama wants to see you, Danzo-sama." The masked figure bows politely._

 _He rises, casting a glance in the direction of the boy. Dumbstruck, most likely. The boy is staring at his soup, a hard grip on his spoon. There's no time to waste over him though. "He is waiting in the Tower?" A nod. The Tower is not far from here. "I will be over directly."_

 _The ANBU nods and vanishes. Danzo rises without saying anything to the boy._

 _His trip to the Tower is uneventful. "Hiruzen?" He asks, as he pushes open the door to the office._

 _The other man gestures towards a seat. "You were right about Kumo." It is unlike Hiruzen to just outright claim so. He hasn't even had the chance to sit down yet._

 _"Mmm?" It is likely that Hiruzen wants something to be done about it, but doesn't know where to begin, or how to ask. You would think that the Hokage would know how to ask for help._

 _But then, then, Nidaime-sama had seen a choice between a brave man and a coward that day. There'd be no man in the world who would choose the coward._

 _Not that Danzo himself is good at asking for help._

 _"Do you think that if we offer an alliance treaty to Ame, they would prefer us over Kumo?" Hiruzen takes a long drag of his pipe and sighs. The smoke lingers in the air between them._

 _"No." His mind wanders back to the boy, back to Nidaime, back to this very day sixteen years ago, when he didn't have the courage to stand up and die, and he wonders about what could have been._

 _He has done well for himself in the intervening years, had amassed political power, had built a worthy reputation, has done well._

 _But he is not Hokage, and he covets the hat his best friend and rival wears. Perhaps it is rejection by a teacher that stings far more than the loss of a hat. He didn't need to be Hokage, but he didn't need his teacher's last words to him to be a reprimand either._

 _"Why?" Hiruzen rubs the bridge of his nose. "By all accounts, Konoha is a better partner to hold an alliance with than Kumo."_

 _They both, even sixteen years after the fact, have far too much of a grudge against Kumo._

 _"Because, Hiruzen, it's likely that Ame doesn't want to be allied with Kumo, but don't have a choice about the matter. Whether or not we offer doesn't make a difference." The corner of his mouth turns down in slight amusement. "You would think that after sixteen years of this, you would know better by now."_

 _"I have you to remind me." The other man sighs and pours out two cups of sake between them. "That night sixteen years ago was so different from now. It almost seems like another life."_

 _Yes, perhaps it had been another life, when they were warriors on the battlefield instead of the lifetime they've spent as Hokage and his Diplomat. "Are you waxing poetic about becoming a father again?" Hiruzen's second child had been born earlier in the year, a daughter this time._

 _"No." Hiruzen sighs. "And that reminds me, you aren't getting any younger yourself."_

 _He is last of his clan, not that the Shimura clan had been particularly large, or blessed with a kekkei genkai for it to matter much. "Konoha won't lose much of anything if I don't have any children."_

 _"That's not what I meant." Hiruzen extinguishes his pipe and knocks it against the ashtray. "It's not what I meant," he says again "and you know it."_

 _His old friend seems to think that finding him a family would make him happy. That children, goodness, are a prerequisite to life fulfillment. He hasn't a traditionalist's interpretation regarding that thought._

 _"I see no purpose to that." He picks up the sake cup and swirls the clear liquid around in the earthenware. "If I wanted to interact with children, I would have found myself a genin team." As it is, the last time he spoke to a child before today was somewhere in the vicinity of three months to half a year ago._

 _"But if I hope that one of my students will become Hokage after me, who will be the diplomat after you?" Hiruzen asks, staring up at the ceiling. "Sure, I understand maybe you're just not interested in a family or a wife or children, but surely, you'd like someone to carry your name when you're gone?"_

 _"I haven't time to worry about that." He doesn't know if the boy—Kaito, his name is Kaito—bothered to wash his dishes or not. It's likely that the gutter child conned him out of a meal, and is as of now, trying to drag himself and his mother far away from the strange man who had invited a child into his house on a whim. Such men are generally predators. The boy would be wise to run away. "There's much too much to do right now than to think about so many years into the future."_

 _Still, it gives him food for thought. What had his mother said once upon a time? You are my legacy, son. You are who I will leave behind to tell my story._

 _He hasn't anyone to tell his story. He hasn't even thought about grooming a replacement of himself in the workings of the village. Sure, it might be pleasant to think of being irreplaceable, but that would make him even more important than the Nidaime and the Shodaime combined. He hasn't that hubris._

 _Both men had been titans of their era, but both men were ultimately replaceable. Their roles in the village structure had been large, but now, with the passage of time, it is the young who have taken up the roles they once filled._

 _"Just think about it, alright?" Hiruzen holds his own cup out towards Danzo's._

 _He moves his cup forward just a bit, and they click glasses together. "Alright, I will."_

 _"To another year as village leaders. May we get to see many more." Hiruzen smiles ruefully. "And may Konoha prosper after us."_

 _They drink on it._

 _He rises to go. "I have papers to look after for tonight, so I ought to go now. I'll draft a plan for what to do with Kumo tomorrow morning. We should be able to begin by evening."_

 _"That sounds good." Hiruzen rises and walks with him to the door. "Biwako will miss me soon. If there's anything you need to tell me, a message to my house would be faster than routing it through the Tower."_

 _He nods and goes._

* * *

The meeting room door creaks open. It's Hiruzen, who is silent for a change as he sits down in the chair opposite of Danzo. He supposes that he's thankful. It could be Minato. Minato with his sun-yellow hair and sky-blue eyes and his merciless judgement.

Minato is not here. He is thankful for that.

The tea in the pot has gone cold as well. He doesn't even like tea.

He dislikes rose tea the most, but it feels right to be drinking cold rose tea today. His boy is gone, and today is the day the entire world knows it.

Hiruzen watches him from the other side of the table, with heavy dark eyes.

There are eyes everywhere it would seem, blue-gray eyes between his shoulder blades and on the backs of his eyelids, dark brown eyes watching him from across the table.

Eyes everywhere judging him. He didn't kill his boy. The imposter killed his boy. _Iwa_ killed his boy, and Iwa will pay dearly for it.

A gust of wind ruffles through the room and wraps itself down around his bones. Outside, the lilacs seem too bright a searing purple for the occasion against the heavy, overcast sky.

"Inuzuka Kaito died in the hospital early this morning." Hiruzen pours himself a cup of cold tea. "What have you done, Danzo?"

 _What have I done? I have made a sacrifice that you would never dare dream of._ "What you can't do." He sets his cup down, and this time, for true, his hands do not shake. "I gave up my boy for this village." And it is always this, always so bitter.

Eighteen years later, and he still covets the hat his best friend wore and passed on to someone else. Eighteen years later, and he has more power and reputation than ever, but never quite enough. It is never quite enough to erase the sting of the word coward.

Eighteen years, and he has distracted himself in the meantime by building what he could and averting what crisis he had power to. It hadn't been enough to stop the war, but it had been enough to win it, but with an unwelcome cost.

He has never before felt that some costs of preserving Konoha weighed enough to crush his shoulders. He'd always thought the sacrifices would be worth it in the end, that he'd be leaving something worthy of protection to the young man who would have been his legacy.

Eighteen years, and now he has no legacy. That word echoes and rings hollowly in his head. Legacy.

Hiruzen will never need to raise a hand to any of his students will not have to look into their eyes and see shock and horror and hate before leaving the room and feeling the building tremble, and he has three.

The gods are not fair. They never have been. _Why could it not have been one of them who'd been a traitor to Konoha? He has students to spare. He has power to spare and heart to spare. He has the hat and our teacher's regard._

Unlike him. Unlike him, he only had one apprentice that he'd loved like a son, and that word, coward. And now he has an absence, an open wound. It isn't productive to gather hatred and resentment so close. It blinds the eyes to the truth, but today, he thinks he'd rather let it fester.

"So I thought correctly. You did kill him." The words cut in ways that Hiruzen can't possibly understand.

"The imposter who came back from Iwa killed him." He reaches into his haori and pulls out the evidence, compiled neatly into two scrolls. Two scrolls to kill a boy he'd loved. Two scrolls to doom a man. "I merely ended the charade."

"He'd been replaced by a spy?" Hiruzen takes the scrolls and has the decency not to unroll them.

There are only three options. He doesn't know which is the worst.

His boy had been killed in Iwa and replaced with an imposter who had paraded around in his life for a year and a half before Danzo had the courage to kill him. His boy hadn't been killed in Iwa; they'd merely tampered with his memories, and Danzo had killed his own student. His boy had never been his boy, but a spy all along.

The first is the easiest to swallow. "The evidence says so. The mind walk said so. What was I supposed to do, let the mole continue to leak information because it wore a face that I knew?"

"But you don't want anyone else to know about it." Hiruzen tucks the scrolls away.

"There's no reason to tell anyone. The information breach was contained." He rises to go. There's such age on his shoulders now, that he's never felt before. He hadn't felt old before his time before, but he feels it now. He makes sure to keep his shoulders straight anyway. There's time enough to deal with the fatigue later.

If Tsume didn't detect a difference, then she doesn't need to know. Kai's daughter doesn't ever need to know. His friends don't need to know that they've been betrayed.

No one needs to know.

* * *

 _He stands in his foyer with a small amount of trepidation. The house is silent, but there's a light on in the kitchen. Perhaps Kaito has left already. Perhaps there is a mountain of unwashed dishes in his sink, and he ought never have attempted being kind._

 _But no, it does not matter what the child has done._

 _The child is merely a child and has no power to wound or harm him even by rejection. If the boy was smart, he'd have disappeared into the gutters of the city already._

 _The child is asleep in his kitchen doorway, arms wrapped around a mop. The floor is clean, but still damp. The dishes are done. The counter has been freed of its clutter. The table has been wiped and cleared._

 _He half suspects that the half rotten head of cabbage in his refrigerator has been thrown away as well._

 _The grubby little boy sleeps heavily, head cushioned against the yarn of the mop, the bruise on his face in the shape of a hand darkening to purple. It is stark against the pale skin, and Danzo feels a flash of indescribable anger. It disappears as quick as it comes._

 _Well, the boy has paid his dues and more, and it is late._

 _He can stay for the night._

 _He gathers the boy up in his arms, removes the mop from the equation, careful not to touch the bruise. No more than skin over bones, he can feel the child's ribs. He'd thought once, as his father had postulated, that Konoha meant the end of such children and such situations._

 _It's been a long time since he'd been so naive._

 _He had manners at the dinner table though. I doubt his mother was a prostitute by profession before they arrived in Konoha. It is likely that something else drove them here._

 _Refugees perhaps._

 _Tomorrow. Yes, he will think of what to do with the boy tomorrow._

 _Tonight there are papers to read, his own eventual replacement to consider, and deaths to not ponder over._

 _Missed opportunities are missed opportunities._

 _He'd been a coward then, more so than Hiruzen. He pays the price for that moment now._

 _No matter._

 _Opportunities are opportunities. Some will come around again. None of them pertain to this boy._

 _The electric light flickers. A gust of wind blows through the curtains and stirs the muggy air around. There's a storm coming._

 _Behind him, the woman wakes up. He hears the hitch in her breath as she recognizes that she's no longer in that squalid room, that the sheets are crisp and clean, and that this house is more spacious than the crumbling building she left behind._

 _He turns another page._

 _The sheets rustle. There's a weak gasp for air. "Si-" A thump._

 _He turns around. She'd tried to get out of bed and promptly collapsed, coughing on his floorboards._

 _What is he supposed to do? He didn't sign up for this. Didn't sign up for her bloodshot blue eyes, her shaking frame, her child sleeping peacefully on the couch in the next room, didn't—except he had. He had the moment he stepped in and ensured that this family would never be welcome in Yoshiwara again._

 _"You should go back to bed." He offers her a hand to take. "You should know you don't have much time left."_

 _She nods, but doesn't take his hand. "My son, sir?" Her lips are cracked, and in the dim light, her sunken cheeks look worse than they would in the morning. She's young. Younger than his thirty-eight years. Statistically, he ought to be the dying one._

 _"In the next room." He takes a step forward and helps her back into bed. "Rest assured, you will not have to return to your landlord, and that Kaito is safe."_

 _She relaxes minutely. "We don't have any money, sir, and I—" She breaks off and does not meet his eyes._

 _He has half an idea what she used to offer people when they did not have the money to pay. He knows that he wants no part in it. "Your boy cleaned my kitchen." He tells her. "He's paid." What would Hiruzen think of him now?_

 _Sitting on his floor in the dead of night talking to a foreign woman he'd picked up, quite literally, on a whim in the middle of the Yoshiwara? Somehow, he doesn't think this is something his best friend would find the least bit...expected._

 _He doesn't even expect it. I must have taken a leave of my senses._

 _She coughs, shoulders shaking. "I will have to leave him." There is blood on her hand when she takes it away. "I—sir, could I ask you—"_

 _"I will care for him." Oh, it's easy enough to say this, to give a dying woman some form of comfort. He can always ship the boy off to an orphanage in one of the upper districts. He's bright enough to be adopted and fitted into a family somewhere._

 _"God bless you, sir." Her grip on his hand is not tight enough to be uncomfortable, but that's only because she hasn't the strength. "People have, people have not been kind...you are the only one...God bless you."_

 _Oh, who is he kidding? He isn't going to subject this woman's child to the conditions of the orphanage. He'd said that he'd care for the child, and promises to the dead are binding in ways that are difficult to avoid. Yes. I have definitely taken a leave of my senses tonight to be making promises like a madman._

 _Outside, the thunder rolls, and her grip on his hand loosens further._

 _"Do you want me to go get him so he can say goodbye?"_

 _She's close now, hovering on the brink of this world and the next. It had only been worry for her son's future that had kept her alive this long. He's removed that burden from her and now she's slipping away._

 _"Please sir."_

 _He doesn't tell her that he has a name, that calling him sir makes his skin crawl, that he really isn't as kind as she assumes him to be. He doesn't tell her. He just gets up and goes to shake the boy awake. "Your mother wants to see you."_

 _"Kaa-san?" The grubby gutter boy is on his feet in an instant. "Will Kaa-san, will she—" His voice breaks and he has to take another breath to continue his question. "Will she be alright, sir?"_

 _"Shimura-san." He is tired of being called sir. "And no, I expect she will not be alright." There's no reason to lie to the living. He can lie to the dying with a straight face, but there's no purpose in getting a child's hopes up to dash them for no reason whatsoever._

 _The boy's bolted out the door in an instant._

 _He sits down on the couch and waits for the sobbing in the other room to stop. The wind howls. The thunder roars, and he does not intrude where he is not needed._

 _A leave of my senses. What am I supposed to do with a boy?_

 _You are my legacy, my son. His mother's voice whispers. You will tell my story after I am gone._

 _A legacy. He rolls the word around in his head and thinks of the boy, of Iwa no Kaito who he cannot send to the orphanage because he'd promised the dying woman that he'd take care of her son. Well, Hiruzen is always going on about how I should acquire a child to be my legacy._

 _Why not this one?_

* * *

Tsume sends him an invitation to the imposter's funeral a week later. The words are scratched out starkly against the heavy white paper. She had to have broken pens over this in her half wild anger. Tsume will survive this just fine.

It's not really an invitation, more a note with a date and a time and a place. He half expects that there won't be that many attending.

The war hadn't made Kai's status as an immigrant any easier to bear. He considers sending her a note back to say that he will not be attending—he has no desire to see the imposter buried by Kai's weeping wife and child.

But it would be callous. He had promised Kai that he would take care of Inuzuka Hana. Promises to the dead are hard to break. He ought at least make sure that the child is alright.

She should be five years old now, having spent her fifth birthday with the man she thought of as her father. He had waited long enough for that. He ought to go. He ought to send the invitation back with an affirmation and go.

He ought to, but he sits there for a long moment and doesn't do anything. Two hours until they put the imposter into the ground. Did they even bury Kai in Iwa? Did they leave his body out for the crows? _I trusted you, Shishou, but you weren't there when I needed you._

He pushes the funeral invitation off his table into the wastebasket.

"Danzo-sama, Hokage-sama wants your advice about the new treaty Suna is proposing." It's one of his own agents. What was the boy's name again? He can't possibly remember. He has roughly three hundred of them in the faceless masses under his command. He doesn't remember names, only numbers. _Root Agent 00253._

He rises slowly. "Tell Hokage-sama that I will be there presently."

He still thinks Minato is too young, too nice, too soft to be Hokage, that perhaps Orochimaru would have made a better fit for the position, but Minato had been instrumental in winning the war, and Hiruzen has his doubts about Orochimaru's mentality these days.

He'd confessed it after putting the two scrolls away in his sleeve. Two scrolls to doom a man, and one shared tragedy to bring them back together again.

Danzo himself hasn't seen Orochimaru do anything treasonous as of yet, so he doesn't know if this is merely Hiruzen's sad attempts to comfort him, or a leftover remnant of their rivalry. _See, I too, might have to sacrifice one of my boys for Konoha._

But it wouldn't be the one that Hiruzen loves like a son.

He goes to speak with Minato.

"...It's a big change from being frontlines for certain, Elder Shimura." Minato smiles, small, soft, and Danzo reminds himself to stay in the present.

The past is the past. It does not do to dwell on lost decisions, missed chances, doors slammed shut. Only this moment and the future matters. The past is set in stone.

"You will find it that way for a while yet." He almost laughs at the surprised look on the Yondaime's face. "You didn't think that we were all desk ninja in our youth, did you?" They'd been Konoha's strongest in their day, Hiruzen, Homura, Koharu, Kagami, himself. Students of the Nidaime were never weak.

"Oh, no." Minato corrects himself. "That's not it at all." The young man looks away. "I just, you never supported my candidacy much at all. I was wondering if you could tell me why?"

And on paper, there's no reason at all to oppose Namikaze Minato's ascension to the highest level of office if one isn't a bigot who believes that orphans ought to know their place.

"You're a war hero." He tells the younger man, the taste of something bitter on his tongue. "Those tend to die young if they survive the war. Don't do something that will get yourself killed less than two years into your tenure as Hokage, and I'll reevaluate Hiruzen's decision then." If Namikaze Minato survives two years as Hokage without Hiruzen behind him pulling the strings, he'd be a power to protect Konoha then.

No. He doubts this young man in front of him will live. Of the people who survived the Second War, he, Homura, Koharu, and by a lesser extent, Hiruzen, they'd been more cowards and villains than heroes. Kagami had been a hero. Kagami had died heroically in the last stand against Kumo invaders at the border.

Kagami is by all accounts, still very much dead, a plot of land as his grave on the banks of the Naka River.

"I see." Minato says, his eyes hard, but his grin in place. "I'll keep your advice in mind, Elder Shimura. You've been a great help with parsing the political discourse from the Kazekage today."

He's been dismissed. Hiruzen would never have dismissed him like this, but Hiruzen likes to think that they are friends and nothing but friends.

It is a quarter past one o'clock in the afternoon on a blazingly hot April day. He has a funeral to attend.

The graveyard is nearly empty by the time he arrives. He's late. He pauses at the edge of the plot and watches Tsume's shoulders slump. She is eight months pregnant with her elder child tucked into her side standing in front of the freshly turned earth, but he has confidence that she'll survive.

She's survived plenty and will continue to do so.

He reminds himself that he is not guilty, that this scene didn't happen by his hand, but Onoki's. Would it sooth her grief to know that her husband has been dead for a year and a half? It would not.

Over the years, he's gotten used to lying to the living. Some lies hurt less than the truth.

Some promises to the dead are hard to keep and harder to break. He's here for Kai's daughter.

Inuzuka Hana seems to have collapsed in on herself. She has red-rimmed eyes, but she does not cry.

Kai hadn't cried either, that day they'd buried his mother. They are more alike than he thought, father and daughter.

"I thought you weren't going to come, Shimura-san." Tsume doesn't turn around. "I would have waited so you could say goodbye to him."

"It is better this way." He comes to stand beside her and stares at the dark earth. _Did they bury Kai or did they leave his body out for the crows?_ "If you had left it uncovered I would have lost my composure."

She laughs, a single hysterical barking noise that rips free of her throat and leaves shattered edges in the air. "Okami forbid anyone know how much you loved him."

He looks down at the child by her side. Inuzuka Hana stares blankly ahead, unseeing, unfeeling, numb to the world. _At least she's had five birthdays instead of three and a half._ She'd thought the imposter her father. He's responsible for the imposter's death.

By all rights, he's killed her father. Still, promises to the dead are hard to keep but harder to break. He is her godfather, so he ought to check in on her well being now and again. "He hasn't left us completely."

"He never talked about you after he came back from Iwa." Tsume says, suddenly. "I'd wanted to ask, but it was never the right time, you two had a fight before he was deployed from what I remember, and he didn't want to talk about it much. I just thought, thought there was more time—"

 _I thought we would have more time as well._

"You invited me anyway." He hadn't wanted to attend this morning. He hadn't replied that he would.

"I thought he'd want to see you one last, last time." She chokes on her words and pulls her daughter close. "He really admired you, you know."

His eyes are wet. It's been years. He shouldn't have come. _Kai died a long time ago._ He tells himself. _Today is just the day they all know it._

It doesn't help.

* * *

" _Are you going to live, or are you going to die?" He asks the sniveling child before him. The boy had slipped down here, to his mother's grave after dinner again. It is the seventh night in seven nights that he has done this. If he is going to die, it doesn't matter, but he rather hopes that the boy will choose to live._

 _Death isn't everything in this world and there is still much more of life for him to see. Sometimes the young forget that when gripped by the throes of tragedy._

 _The boy's shoulders shake, and he whimpers and gasps before the freshly turned earth._

 _Had he ever been a child like this? Surely he got up and moved on sometime on his own? What does he say to a child who is mourning the death of a mother? He'd lost his own mother so long ago that she is just a shadow lurking in the back of his mind, a whisper of the word legacy on the wind._

 _Perhaps that's not true. She's more than that, but for it to be of any use he would have to tell the boy so. He doesn't want to today._

" _I—I don't want to die." Such misery. Well, at least this boy knows that death isn't a solution._

" _Then, do you want to live or do you want to exist?" There are some that never move past the death of a loved one. They stay there, frozen in place, completely lost for the rest of their short lives. Subsistence is all they cling to at that point._

 _He rather hopes that this boy won't do that. There'd be no help for him if that's the path that he choses._

" _L-live, Si—" The boy ducks his head. "Shimura-san." So he remembered then._

" _Then you have stop coming here after dinner." Sometimes, he must be cruel to be kind. If he lets the boy spend his evenings here he'll never stop grieving even if he wants to live. It does no good to dwell on death._

" _Shimura-san?"_

" _If you do not, then you'll miss the start of school." Likely, telling the child to stop grieving will do him no good, and heaven knows that Danzo himself is hardly interesting enough to be a distraction._

 _It will take years before this boy is ready to learn._

" _School?" The boy-Kaito, his name is Kaito-uncurls himself from his folded position._

" _I have signed you up for the Shinobi Academy, Kaito." He holds out a hand. He cannot spend his entire evening here, but he had promised this dead woman that he will take care of her child, and damn him if he breaks a promise that he does not have to._

 _Kaito takes his hand, and he pulls the boy to his feet. "Kaa-san called me Kai."_

 _Kai? Oh, very well then. Kai it is. "You'll start school next week then, Kai."_

" _Shimura-san?" Kai tugs at his sleeve. "Does the hurt go away if you choose to live?"_

 _He blinks. Does the— "No." He rather suspects that it doesn't. The grief just gets buried under everything else that must be done when choosing to live. "The absence doesn't go away, but life goes on."_

 _Kai lets go of a shaky breath, and his hand drops from the Councilor's shirt. "O-okay." He straightens his shoulders. "I'll do well in school, Shimura-san. You won't be disappointed."_

 _Disappointed? He doesn't think so. Kai is polite and attentive and likely nearly two years older than his yearmates._

 _It will be unlikely that he does not do well in school. "Do you know how to read?"_

" _Kaa-san taught me." Ah, good. That would make the transition easier._

" _You will come with me to the Tower in the meantime." It is important that orphaned children are accounted for, not that the system will account for Kai if he doesn't take matters into his own hands. A ward of the state, living at the Shimura residence._

 _And now Hiruzen will stop nagging about children. I have one. I don't need any more._

* * *

Agent 00245 reports that Inuzuka Hana made it to a shelter, and that both she and the imposter's son are safe. Danzo dismisses the thought that the imposter's son might have the explosion release. One, it is far too early to tell, and he rather suspects that Tsume would truly crumple if she had to give up one of her children. For another, he already has the imposter's notes held in trust, and various collections of the imposter's genes.

It would be easy to ensure that Konoha 'borrowed' the explosion release from Iwa without ever having to irritate his boy's spirit in the afterlife.

Agent 00245 also reports that they've secured Inuzuka Gaku for questioning. The young man had been there when the imposter died.

He'd forgotten—Why had he forgotten?—that the imposter would have time to talk before he died. That yes, he'd chosen a foolproof method that looked more like an accident than a murder, but still, that gave the imposter time to talk.

He might have had a contact in the hospital, and however small that margin of possibility might have been, it existed. It needs to be investigated.

He thanks Agent 00245 and heads deeper into the base. He comes to a stop outside the one way glass of the interrogation room.

"This can be very simple." Agent 00156 tells Inuzuka Gaku. "You can tell us what Iwa no Kaito said before his death since he was sitting outside the door, or we can douse you and ask you again." Agent 156 had always been efficient in information gathering techniques.

He would rather that the young man on the other side of the door speak quickly about the matter. There's no need to anger Inuzuka Kosshi without reason.

The Inuzuka queen doesn't need much reason to go on the hunt these days after she'd lost her more easy going half on the Kusa border.

"Go fuck yourself." The young man snaps at the masked figures all about him. Brave. Stupid, but brave.

"What did he say?" Agent 00156 presses forward. "Tell us and you go free immediately."

"Like I fucking said the first time." Inuzuka Gaku growls, spit flying from his lips. His partner's on the table behind him, limp and unresponsive, and he has to still be drugged quite badly because his eyes are unfocused. "Go fuck yourself. I ain't telling you nothing 'bout Kaito-jisan."

His breathing is ragged. His eyes are bloodshot. His hands are broken. "You'll learn something 'bout Konoha over my dead body." Still, still he grits his teeth and smiles mockingly. "And that's that the will of fire doesn't die, you motherfucking bastards."

Agent 00156 slaps him across the cheek.

Inuzuka Gaku is unrepentantly silent, but there's a darkening bruise on his cheek in the shape of a hand...Another boy, another split lip and bruised cheek.

It was a bad idea to be so hasty. He has committed so many errors with this. So, so many errors. When did he start slipping this badly? He gestures, and Agent 00156 retreats from the room.

"Danzo-sama." Agent 00156 kneels, a hand on a knee, the other in a fist on the ground. "I am sorry, the Inuzuka has been recalcitrant, but I am certain the information is coming."

"Leave it be." It's likely that they'd have to half kill Inuzuka Gaku to get information out of him, and that would be both a waste and a liability. The Inuzuka inherit through the mother's line, so the boy isn't the heir of a clan, but there's no need to alienate a staunchly loyal clan either.

He considers his options carefully. "Bring me Inoichi's ward." Fu is a recent addition to his forces, but certainly, at nine, old enough to be useful in this situation. He cannot let Inuzuka Gaku go at the moment.

There is still too much that is uncertain. Best make sure to deal with the issue now. Inuzuka Gaku can forget this night and remember that he's been recently inducted into ANBU.

Anything else, well, he'll deal with that headache when the time comes.

It was unlikely that the imposter had backup in the hospital anyway. Tsume had been with him all afternoon as he lay dying. There's likely nothing that happened that would endanger Konoha.

Still, some time, he'd like to wring the imposter's last words from Inuzuka Gaku.

Word comes in that the Yondaime and his wife had died against the Kyubi while sealing the tailed-beast into their infant son half an hour later as he sits at his desk watching the red sun rise over a wreck of a city.

Hiruzen summons him to the funeral, and he almost wants to laugh. _Didn't I warn you not to become a hero, Namikaze Minato? Couldn't you just have listened to what I said?_

Yet another man dead in the name of protecting Konoha.

Still, years and years pass, and he cannot seem to die. _Coward._ He brushes the thought away. _When there's life, there's another thing to be done. My time's not up yet._

 _Coward._ The word rings out behind him on the flagstones like the tapping of his cane in the silence. _Coward. You do not want to die._

* * *

 _It has been a few months since Kai started school when he comes home with bruises on his arms in the shape of fingers._

 _Or it's just taken him a few months to notice that someone has been hurting the child under his care. He prefers to think that this is the first time such a situation has occurred. "Who did this to you?"_

 _Kai shifts on both feet and tries not to meet his eyes. He grips the boy's chin between two fingers and forces him to look him in the eye. "Who did this to you?"_

" _Sensei was just...a bit forceful when showing me the katas, Shimura-san."_

" _Sensei? It wasn't one of the other children?" He needs to make sure that he doesn't go in and look like a overbearing parent._

 _He is not Iwa no Kaito's father, nor will he ever be. He doesn't need to start rumors, and moreover, he doesn't need the headache of putting the rumors to bed._

" _I can take the other children." Kai ducks his head, but the small sharp grin on his lips is amusing enough at least. "They don't bother me anymore. Not since the ones who do started getting red ants in their desks."_

 _Ah. His boy's a vicious one then. Perhaps the gutters have taught him something useful after all._

" _It's just...I can't make Sensei pay for hurting me, 'cause he'll just hurt me worse."_

 _Sensei. He'd thought the teachers at the Academy would be smart enough to read the biographies of the children that they taught. Perhaps not. A glance at this boy's name and a brief skim through the biographical information must have been enough for this chunin who would very shortly no longer have a job._

 _Kai pulls at his sleeve. "He won't fail me in class though, Shimura-san. My marks won't disappoint you."_

" _You won't be seeing that sensei again." Evidently, ward of Shimura Danzo isn't enough for this chunin. He'll send this one to a border outpost where they can rot for the rest of their natural life. Shimura Danzo doesn't like inefficiency, and he likes it less when it damages his own ability to keep his promises._

" _Shimura-san?" When he turns back to Kai, the boy's already set the table for dinner. "Am I not going back to school?"_

 _The corner of his mouth turns down in amusement. "You're not getting out of school." He sits down. "That chunin will be deployed to the border of the Land of Fire and the Land of Rain."_

 _The rest of the meal is spent in silence. Kai is still fidgeting however. "Ask your question."_

" _Why'd you keep me?" The words tumble out of Kai's mouth faster than a flood. "You're clearly important 'cause you have this house and visit the Tower and can move my sensei away if he makes you mad, so, so..."_

 _Good grief. The boy looks like he's about to go mad right this instant._

" _Why'd you keep me if you could get someone better?"_

 _Why did he keep this boy over all the other ones? This one more than any other one he could have picked up from the streets of Yoshiwara? He's passed other pitable children before. None of them have ended up in his house._

" _Because I am the reason you can't return to your old life." He'd snapped at the innkeeper, and what he's started, he'll always finish. "And I promised your mother that I'd 'keep you' as you like to put it."_

" _O-okay." Kai releases a shaky breath. "Thank you then, Shimura-san. You won't regret it."_

* * *

Inuzuka Hana graduates Academy at age seven and a half. Nara Ensui's been poking around in the Archives about his best friend's 'death' and quite frankly, the Nara's meddling is a headache and a half. Still, it seems like the Nara wants a very specific genin team with Inuzuka Hana on it.

He might have more than a little to do with how the Nara discovered his goddaughter's best friends. Who else would have arranged it so that the Academy teachers were talking about student friendships in the chunin break room on the morning that Nara Ensui stopped by?

"It seems that Ensui wants to take a genin team this year." Hiruzen remarks, while knocking his pipe on the ashtray.

"It seems?" Koharu raises an eyebrow at this. "That boy's been practically screaming his intentions from the rooftops."

It's not as if the man has kept it a secret.

The man's bad at keeping secrets, considering that he's been covertly glaring in Danzo's direction when he thinks the older man isn't looking for the past two years. It's very clear who he suspects in the case of Kai's murder, and not without reason, since he did kill the imposter.

Sometimes, lies come back to haunt the one who tells them. _If I'd decided to make the betrayal public then, I wouldn't have to outmaneuver Nara Ensui now._

 _But then that might have killed Tsume, and Kai would never forgive me then._

What's done is done. Now it only remains to decide what course to take.

"The question is," Homura mutters "whether or not we humor him."

The best path might be to give Nara Ensui what he wants. A genin team will distract him from continuing his investigations for at least another two years. A genin team will appease him quite a bit, and there are other plans to enact in the meantime to continue to distract him.

There's no real reason to kill Nara Ensui. For one, he is instrumental down in Crypt. For another, Kai's daughter would benefit from a devoted sensei more than Minazuki Yuki. That man is far too average, and Danzo doubts he'd be putting his life on the line for a student any time soon.

No, she'll learn all sorts of bad habits from that man. Better that it be Nara Ensui.

"Give him the team he wants." It's been a while since he's opened his mouth, so the other three turn around to look at him for a long moment before anyone speaks.

"Danzo, you've gone mad." Koharu sighs. "We can't let Nara Ensui anywhere near the field. He's impossible to motivate when he isn't in Crypt. That's the whole reason he ended up there in the first place."

"Not to mention, it sets a bad precedent for other jounin sensei to pick and choose their students." Hiruzen steeples his hands and stares across the table.

 _Old friend,_ his eyes ask. _Are you thinking of Kaito again? You have to realize that there wasn't anything else you could have done about that, and that this solves nothing._

Danzo meets his eyes firmly. _And you should know that I will not send my goddaughter out into the village without a proper escort. Minazuki Yuki is not a proper escort._

"Nara Ensui has never been sane enough to be reasoned with." He sets his hand on the table, fingers tapping. "And clearly he's bound and determined to get the genin team he wants." He takes a sip of his sake and feels the familiar burn of alcohol on his tongue. "It might be easier to give him what he wants than to have him suddenly quit the forces altogether."

"You think he will?" Hiruzen chuckles. "I think he likes his job a little better than that." _You don't know a man like Nara Ensui half as well as you think._

 _He'd definitely quit if you burn him again. Then, you don't think you burned him the first time._

"He'll threaten to." He swirls the sake around in its cup. "And you should know him well enough to know that he's capable of every threat he makes."

"Still, it's bad precedent to let jounin sensei move teams around." Homura sighs. "And yet, losing the Head of Crypt would be such a blow."

"I'll make a decision at the meeting tonight." Hiruzen pushes himself away from the table. "If Danzo's right then I might as well give him the team. It's not as if our current system is built on years and years of effort when it'll crumple like wet paper in the face of a motivated Nara."

Danzo snorts. "The young never respect the institutions of their elders." He also rises to go.

Inuzuka Hana graduated this morning. If he knows her habits well enough, she'll be somewhere on the streets with her brother riding on her shoulders. He has a goddaughter to see.

* * *

 _Shishou, will you take care of my daughter? I haven't blood kin to ask, and you are the closest I have to family._

 _I would be happy to take care of your girl, my foolish sentimental boy._

A laugh. A small, sharp smile.

"Neechan! Tell another story!" The imposter's son is just like every other Inuzuka boy there has ever been and Danzo suspects he's similar to every other one that will ever be.

 _You cannot punish a child for the sins of his father._

 _No, Shishou. I would rather that you not._

He sits here, on the side of the street at a table by a teahouse, face shaded away from the sun by the awning, watching them. Today is not a day for introductions.

It is never the right day for introductions.

"Kiba-chan, I told you so many stories already." He was right. Inuzuka Hana did want to share her triumphs with her brother, and now they are walking together in the marketplace, the boy on her shoulders as they pass hard candies between them. A trio of wolf-dog adolescents tumble after her.

One of them stops to stare in his direction, but quickly rejoins the pack.

"But I want another one." Kiba tugs at her hair with a child's disregard. "Neechan tells the best stories."

She is a bright and serious child according to her Academy teachers, curious, with an interest in history, and a small group of friends.

Bright and serious, but with an Inuzuka's tendency to honesty and blunt speech.

"But my throat is tired now." She reaches up to poke her brother's cheek. "I'll tell you a story when we get home."

"Okay." The boy giggles. "Where're we going now, Neechan?"

She will not fit well into the role he'd thought she might play. No Inuzuka has ever been a politician, and Inuzuka Hana won't be any different no matter who her father was.

"There are puppies in the kennels. Wanna go see?"

He will not have a legacy, but promises to the dead that are hard to keep are even harder to break. His goddaughter will have ample protection when she leaves the village at the very least.

"Yeah! Puppies!"

 _No one will tell my story when I am gone. I have only this life._

* * *

"And what about all this good I have in my heart—does it mean anything?"

-Saul Bellow, _Herzog_

* * *

 **A.N.** So I got inspired to do this piece because recently I've been doing a lot of pondering about Danzo. I'm not entirely sure how well it turned out. I've always felt that Danzo is nearly always convinced that he's doing the right thing. And as a consequence, he does some pretty terrible things, but he doesn't see it that way. Hence, Gaku's torture scene is so muted its...pretty much nonexistent...Even so, he has a spark of humanity in him. He's not an unfeeling rock.

Thus we get this eleven thousand word something. Now, let's see who can piece together all the clues about what was actually going on between Kaito and Danzo...neither of their perspectives has the whole story, but there are a few more published clues.

Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed, favorited and followed!

~Tavina


	15. Bride of the Wolf God: Rising

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.** Word of warning, this is a backstory. Kiba makes an appearance in one scene. There are no other recognizable characters from Bloodless who make an appearance here. This backstory is not essential to understanding the rest of Bloodless, though it might clear up some questions about Okami. If that does not sound like your cup of tea, this is your warning to turn back. If that does in fact, sound like your cup of tea, on with the story!

* * *

My heart is so full of you, I can hardly call it my own.

— Liana Radulescu

* * *

He watches as Inuzuka Kiba looks about his shrine with confusion after he winks out of view.

"Just 'cause you can disappear quick doesn't mean you're older'n stars Jiji." The wolf boy mutters. "Just means you know cool ninja tricks."

His partner whines and snuggles close to the boy's neck. "Strange, Kiba. 'S strange."

"Whaddya mean strange?'" Kiba pulls his puppy out of his collar and raises him so that they are eye to eye.

"Kiba..."

Okami chuckles. The puppy won't be able to explain what he felt to the boy. It takes a little more like age to understand the presence of a god. The boy himself probably felt a difference, but it's unlikely that he'd be able to explain it to someone else either. The presence of benevolent gods generally has that effect on people. He knows more by experience than anything else.

His grandson — it is easier to call the boy that instead of sifting through the branches of his daughter's family tree to discover exactly _how_ precisely they are related — is one of the bravest souls he's encountered despite the boy's relatively young age.

Who else sits down with a deity and calls them Jiji without barely a second thought?

Down below, the wolf boy puts his partner back on his head, and they set about playing a game of marbles in the dusty stone path beyond the shrine steps. "He coulda at least said goodbye." Kiba mutters.

Yes, indeed.

Amusing.

Inuzuka Kiba had to have known that the being he called Jiji is a little more than human. Yet, he didn't treat that being any differently than a normal old man.

It has been a long time, even by his standards, since he's checked on his daughter's descendants. It has been long...and the dull ache of loss in his chest throbs still.

Inuzuka Kiba reminds him of Chikasa, of her fiery temper, her smiles, and wicked humor.

Chikasa is close to his heart still.

Nagatori Chikasa.

The centuries turn. Time passes. Mountains have crumbled into the sea. The world has forgotten her name, but Nagatori Chikasa still weighs on his heart. _Bride of the Wolf God._

 _That is all she is now._

It's a disservice to her brilliance that her connection to him is all that they remember. She'd been so much more, like a comet in the night sky, but there is no person living who remembers her. Her name has been lost to the ages, and she is only Bride of the Wolf God now.

Something about that tastes bitter. _Her name is Nagatori Chikasa, and for her I would have chased and caught the moon._

He steps into the shrine.

There is the statue made to his image and then Yasuka and Yama beneath it. He has buried them both, but that is the way of things. God-born they might have been, but not immortal. Touched by his power, but without his longevity. That's the way of mortals: they do not endure.

All of his family has been so. He has not thought to love again. Losing everything once is painful enough. He doesn't want to live through it all another time.

Though, in some small way, he already does. His children's children, their children, so on down the line, a millennium of loss has worn thin his heart.

There is a stick of unlit incense before his statue. The likeness retains his features, his golden eyes and white hair, his crooked, twice broken nose, the red fangs, and his tendency to wear white, the ruff of fur he kept about his neck centuries ago, and the sword by his side. He wagers that the artist would have included the scar on his left flank too if they'd known of it. It really is a remarkable likeness for someone who had only Yasuka's stories to base it off of.

It seems that she'd remember him all too well, just without his most fatal flaw. _What foolish pride I had back then._

The sun slides down the side of the statue as he stands there, thinking. _What foolish pride I have now, to do what I've been planning all these years._

He can afford to be patient now. He has all the time in the world. He just needs to find the right moment to move.

But the painted wood doesn't hold his sorrow or his slowly simmering rage. He had been tricked and betrayed. He will have the blood that is due to him. The pieces are almost all in place. He need only wait. His painted face holds only benevolence, as it should for his children's children.

He moves forward slowly, glancing about at the well kept building. His daughter's children are faithful still, with her wild temper and brash ways. Perhaps it is Yasuka that Inuzuka Kiba reminds him of, and by extension, his own youth, of that time when everything was cast in shades of gold, and he'd run wild in the mountains.

He is no longer a young god despite looking ageless.

He is no longer so pleasantly _free_ with his affections as he had been before he knew what it meant to lose and what it meant to grieve. When he'd been young, Amaterasu had told him that gods do not have mortal companions because all who do come to grief.

He'd fallen in love with a mortal woman anyway.

What is ten years to a god?

For this one, everything. _A life condensed to ten years._

 _All the centuries of the sun cannot hope to match you, my darling. Your brilliance was everything to me._

He lights the incense before his likeness and vanishes with the sun into the smoke.

* * *

He'd been born from a thought, a plea for something more, gathered in the darkness, in the space before the stars were lit and the world was made and time's pearls strung together on Amaterasu's necklace. No relation to the creation of the greater gods and goddess, he had been born in the fabric of darkness to find a home in a wish: to be wild, to be free, to run and jump and sing. Perhaps that made him older than they, though less powerful than they, for he is no relation to Izanagi.

He does not know. He'd only been there in the space of a moment when before there'd been nothing.

He had no form then, only being, a mind perhaps, but a mind without a body, until he had been found as the other Kami sought to define the space they'd come to being in.

It was Tsukuyomi who had reached out to him first. "Who do we have here?"

He'd formed a hand — "Nameless and motherless." — and been pulled into the light of Amaterasu. Only then did he have a form. The mirror that Tsukuyomi held up showed him long white hair and a pale face marked by two red fangs.

"No longer nameless and no longer alone." Amaterasu had decided without a moment's consideration. She had a face that burned, searing to the eye, though he supposes, now on looking back, that she was beautiful. At that moment, he had no comparison to judge her by. "You are Okami no Ryoshi no Otoko."

And so he came to have a name and form though his place in the pantheon of gods came later.

Tsukuyomi took Amaterasu's hand, for those were the days when they were still of one mind and very much in love, and they departed towards the heavens. Reluctantly, he had followed. Where else was he to go, now that the darkness could hold him no longer?

 _Okami no Ryoshi no Otoko._ He turns the thought over in his mind. _Okami. My name is Okami._

 _I am Okami._

The years would pass, and his name would shorten and he would come to live on the peak of Mount Hoyoken in what would later be Fire Country. He would gather his pack and live among them, calling at the moon.

At Tsukuyomi, shunned by his sister for his role in Uke Mochi's murder. He'd been touched by the moon first when the gods had come to find him among their number, and he always felt a special kinship to Tsukuyomi. Yet he could not take Tsukuyomi's side either, for it was Amaterasu who had named him, given him form and feature from the darkness by her light.

So he had stopped visiting the heavens and chose to live in the mortal realm among his pack. When he ran with the wolves, he became a wolf himself. He was the hunter on the hillside and a man in the streets.

The mortal men and women below built him a temple at the foot of Mount Hoyoken and offered up their lambs to his image in return for the promise that the pack will not ravage their herds, for promises of good hunting and peaceful days without war. And so he came to have a purpose, Okami-sama, god of the hunt and the hillsides, nurtured by the strength with which the people beneath Mount Hoyoken believed in him.

In those days, he rarely paid attention to the men and women at the foot of his mountain. He was their god, but there was the division between siblings for him to concern himself with. It took up all of his time, and the mortals didn't need him anyway. They would live just as well without his attention.

Amaterasu and Susanoo bickered over the smallest things without Tsukuyomi there to mediate between them. Yet, Amaterasu was too prideful to allow herself to ask for her brother-husband back, and no god was willing to risk her wrath by suggesting Tsukuyomi's return, so there was strife in the realm of the gods as Amaterasu took one lover, then another, fought with Susanoo over the smallest decisions, meddled with the lives of mortals, and refused to think about how she had banished Tsukuyomi into the nighttime sky.

He wanted to suggest it, but it was unlikely to do any good. Amaterasu would make up her own mind when she could no longer bear the pain of separation, and not a moment before.

* * *

He has traveled beyond the foot of the mountain before, but this is the first time he has done so for perhaps two hundred years or so. This time he leaves, because he has a sudden craving for human brewed tea.

There is an earthiness to mortal tea that he cannot find when he raids Inari's pantry. Not to mention, whenever he raids Inari's pantry she is inordinately displeased and will not welcome him back for at least a century, or two if he had taken some tea more precious than the other ones. And since only humans can brew mortal tea, he will have to find a teahouse.

As he recalls, there is a teahouse on the second street on his right in the small village he'll first meet when he steps foot off of the south side of the mountain. The village is so small he can't possibly miss it. He sets his course in that direction, because this ought to be a short trip, perhaps a month or two, and if he can find the human sweets Goya loves so much, his lieutenant will be less upset at his sudden leave-taking if only because his whims are incredibly sudden. He only started craving human brewed tea three days ago and now he's up and left the mountain.

It suits his lieutenant to remind him that other gods do not have such...sudden urges, are not given to his brand of impulsive decision making and thus their lives are much more structured.

The words have always slid off of his skin, looping in one ear and out the other. What does he care for a well structured life when he has everything that he needs and wants whenever he cares to look for it?

As it is, he has taken care to disguise himself. His mortal body doesn't have fangs, or golden eyes, or the ruff of fur he wears when he is lounging about in his mountain villa. He's even given himself dark hair so that he can blend in with the surrounding mortals.

 _They must have sesames._ He reminds himself. _Goya loves sesames._

Ah, well. It is to be a short trip, and eventually Goya will forgive him as she always does.

It is a beautiful day in late summer with a soft breeze and a clear sky, so he takes the footpath down the mountain. It had rained the night before, and now the air is clear and fresh.

And it is there at the foot of Mount Hoyoken that he begins to run into trouble.

For one, the small village that he last remembered is now...no longer quite so small. For another, the cacophony of sounds and scents and sights is enough to render him quite lost as soon as he makes his way through the first few streets.

For once in his life, he can't use his nose or his ears to orient himself, only his eyes. He's not used to remembering his way by sight alone. Most times, he remembers now things smell more than he does the colors and the shapes of it. It makes for a bad combination now, where everything is far more _confusing_ than he remembers it.

That, and he has found neither sweets nor tea.

Or well, he _could_ simply summon a cloud and float away, but he's learned over the years that most mortals don't take kindly to such practices — their little hearts give out on them far too easily when in the presence of a god — and it is not as if this place is _bad,_ so he refrains. He doesn't want to kill any mortals. Sometimes they are quite interesting, like right now in fact.

The dinky little village at the foot of his mountain has become something of a small _city_ in the span of only two hundred years and that is quite alarming. _What have these mortals been up to? Why have they moved so quickly?_

Perhaps he ought to have visited his temple first and spoken with one of the priests or priestesses in charge? He does remember their names — Chiyu, Miku, Haru — yes, it had taken him a while, but eventually he had learned their names. He is — as he finds with slight chagrin — a rather scatterbrained example of a god. Other gods happened to have longer attention spans and better ability to recall requests and faces and names, and as such, their realms are well ordered.

Still, he doesn't think that any of them have to contend with the veritable _howl_ of empty thought in the back of their minds, so he likes to think that he does better than most.

 _Yes._ He decides. _Next time I visit, even after a short time, I will call upon the temple first so I will not be so lost._

As it is though, he is quite lost. He wanders through the spice market, a hand on his sword hilt and lets the bustling noise wash over him.

They speak differently now too, with new and unfamiliar words. He imagines that if he opens his mouth to speak to anyone he'd sound outlandish and strange. There are different wares and new spices that he has not yet seen before. Perhaps sometime he will have to come back and try them, despite how much they have confused his nose for the day. He will have to spend a span of two years trying to learn their names and their smells and their colors and feels too. Perhaps his trip to the world at the foot of his mountain will have to be lengthened. He doubts Goya will truly mind.

He still sees no place that he recognizes, so he continues on, down one street and then another at his fancy, still searching for the elusive teahouse that he knows is somewhere around the corner, one of these corners anyway, until the sun slides down the sky to hover uncertainly above the horizon.

By now, he is a little bit away from the houses, walking along the banks of the Nakano. _Perhaps I should find someplace to rest now._

He is not paying attention, and compared to Tsukuyomi, he's always been rather clumsy, so it is truly no surprise when his foot slips on a patch of mud, and he crashes straight into the cool waters of the river.

It is even less surprising that with his luck today the first thing he hits is a rock and not one of the banks. He sputters when he comes back to the surface, shaking the water away from his face and ears. His chest aches when he musters up the willpower to crawl to the other bank and flop over there on his back, coughing up water and blood as his ribs heal and pop back into place.

Just because he is a god, doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. It hurts quite a bit in fact.

He is displeased with this.

It figures that a day beginning with getting lost not even a casual day's walk away from his mountain would end with falling into a river and having his chest cavity crushed by a rock. _I should have just taken Goya's advice._ He coughs the water out of his lungs.

A physical body comes with many ills, even if such things will not kill him. It is one of the unfortunate facts of living in the mortal realm to avoid Amaterasu's rages — all kami must take a mortal form when they walk in the mortal realm.

On his mountain, he can get away with modifying his physicality a bit, but now that he's at the foot of Mount Hoyoken, he has to at least be injured like a man, if not die like one because of a crushed chest. Sometimes, he wonders if it was a blessing or a curse that Amaterasu gave him a physical form from the darkness. He is so clumsy some days, and stubbing his toe on the tea table has always been a painful experience that he could have avoided by staying a formless patch of darkness before the light of the sun and moon.

He's about to call this trip a bad job all around and just go home, when he's interrupted.

"Excuse me, sir." He looks up into the face of a young woman dressed in the red and white of a priestess's garb. "Are you alright?" She speaks like he remembers mortals speaking, not just the garble of new words that he's been hearing all day.

He doesn't bother pushing himself up. Regrowing his ribs is quite an exhausting process and has left him rather winded. "I've just had the most awful day."

"Mmmhmm." She offers him a hand up. "You're remarkably well recovered for someone who has nearly drowned in the Nakano River."

He takes her hand. "It wasn't as bad as it looked. I wasn't under long." Mortals are after all, the only reason he doesn't roam the streets as a large white wolf. Apparently, wolves are not found in the polite societies of man. He is considerate enough, most of the time. Considerate enough to not bleed all over her as well, since his chest wound is healed.

At that moment, he feels a rib realign itself with a slight shudder. Make that mostly healed.

"You don't speak like you're from Kakunodate." She says as they continue to walk along the river bank. "Have you travelled far?" She looks up at him with earth brown eyes. She smells like incense and candle wax, both so very normal for a priestess's life that he thinks nothing of it.

He considers the distance from the top of the mountain to the edge of the Nakano River from as close as he can get to a mortal perspective. "I don't know." It had only been a half a day's walk for him after all, surely a week or two can't be that long of a trip to take, but who is he to know the minds of mortals? They are all impatient, even more than him. "You're a miko?" He asks instead.

 _What temple do you belong to? Which one of my comrades do your folk worship now, in my domain no less?_

Not that he would mind if his mortals also worshiped another god, unless it is Susanoo. He and Susanoo do not get along, so it would be best if there are no Susanoo worshippers beneath his mountain.

She shrugs. "In a manner of speaking. I am the only one there, and it is not particularly close to the capital, but you can find lodging for the night for free there where you would have to pay for a room at an inn."

He had been looking for a place to rest. "That sounds very pleasant, thank you…"

"Chikasa." She fills the space of his silence with a name. "Nagatori Chikasa." Chikasa. Calm Bloom or Peaceful Aid. It's a pretty name. Maybe he'll actually remember it.

* * *

As it turns out, the temple grounds are not very large, but in good repair. However, he can't feel the presence of a single god. He had tried while Nagatori-san offered him dry clothing to change out of his damp ones and a meal for the night that he really doesn't need to eat.

He didn't _need_ it, but it was a welcome addition to the day anyway. Kindness is a blessing on days good and bad. Perhaps he needs to offer some sort of kindness in return to Nagatori-san. If she has such an absent god that he can't even feel their presence, maybe he needs to pay them a visit. It is far too unfortunate that such a nice young woman is so alone in the world.

She must be lonely for there are no people here, that much he can ascertain with absolute certainty. He well remembers what it is like to be lonely, to be formless and shapeless, lost without purpose or companions though it's been a long time since it has been so for him. For her to invite a stranger into her home so easily, she must have been lonely.

And lonely is a terrible thing to be.

He continued testing for the presence of someone, anyone, that he would know discretely as she left and then returned with a tea set.

He sits with an arm around his right knee, leg drawn up towards his chest as she pours tea. "Who is the god of this temple, Nagatori-san? I'd like to pay my respects."

She turns to him with something like resignation. "There's no reason to pray to him, sir. He will not answer." She sets the teacup by his right hand and rises gracefully from her seiza to leave. "But thank you for asking."

 _Well_ , he considers it as he swirls the excellent green tea around in his cup. _That is quite troublesome. I must discern who this absent, indifferent god is if it causes my benefactor for the night such grief._

She doesn't know that she's satisfied his craving for mortal tea. She deserves a boon, and if her god causes her such worry then he will hunt until he finds them.

That night he passes her kneeling in front of a shrine, a shred of smoke from the incense stick before her rising up into the air as she taps the wooden fish, a tap per heartbeat in perfect rhythm. She does not lose her place as he stands there listening.

 _Dutiful girl._ He muses. _What self-respecting god would ignore you like this?_

* * *

The next morning finds him splitting wood with an axe in the front yard. "Good morning, Nagatori-san." He nods in her direction, careful not to lose his focus and drive the axe into some unfortunate part of his body. Goya does always shake her head over his clumsiness.

Of course, he wouldn't die of it, probably can't die of anything except the sword forged from one of his own fangs in the hands of a god, but it would be terribly rude to bleed all over the courtyard and cause her to worry overmuch.

See? He can pretend to be a man when he wants to be.

She makes her way across the courtyard to him. "Do you have far to go to return home, sir?" She asks as she dabs his forehead with a handkerchief. "If you do, it will be best to leave early to make the most of the light."

But he still hasn't weaseled the name of her absent god out of her yet. He can't possibly go hunting without a face or even a name.

He blinks. "I — I am unaware of exactly where my home is." This is not exactly a lie. He has called the Mountain home for thousands of years now, but when pressed, it's hard to say exactly where his home is. Where exactly did he come to be?

He certainly isn't aware, and he doubts Amaterasu remembers. The place of his birth is hardly an important piece of information for the Sun Goddess.

She frowns, concern wafting towards him in her scent. "Where are you from then, Traveler-san?"

"I don't know that I can tell you." Where exactly was his patch of space? It was in the fabric between the mortal realm and the realm of the gods, that he's certain, but there are a hundred thousand little hiding holes and pockets of space, and the various travelings between the two realms have only increased that number. How exactly is he to tell which one belongs to him? How he could possibly explain where he came from to this little mortal? From what he is aware, their brains are not made to contemplate the vast complexities of space.

"Then, do you remember your name?"

Oh heavens, she sounds so concerned. "O—" At the last moment, he remembers that she is in fact, not a god, and therefore would not appreciate learning that Okami no Ryoshi no Otoko is standing in her courtyard chopping wood. "—ryoshi."

Okami is the name of his that mortals recognize, so… Well, he supposes he is Ryoshi now, for however long he stays.

It shouldn't take long. Mortals are very easily trusting.

"O-ryoshi-san." She repeats as if tasting the word, as if words are things that one can taste. _What a strange young woman._ "You don't remember anything else?"

He blinks. He hasn't met her before yesterday, which is an undoubtedly short acquaintance. "What else am I supposed to remember?" _She hasn't told me something I was supposed to remember until today, has she?_

He sincerely hopes not, because if she has, she will be disappointed to learn that he's forgotten it. If he stays here for any length of time, she'll have to come to terms with that.

"The river must have damaged you more than I thought." She mutters to herself. He would not have heard it had he been a normal man, but alas, he's not a normal man and had to hear about how he is _damaged_ of all things.

It's easy to be frustrated with her, but she has been kind to him, and her god has been unkind to her, and he has made a decision to go hunting, so he still needs a name. He will stay until he gets one. Goya has always lamented that his moods pass like the wind. Anger, sorrow, mirth, and amusement ruffle over his surface without disturbing his heart.

He is well aware that among his fellows, they whisper that he is a heartless god, well meaning, and hardly cruel, but heartless all the same. There is nothing that he feels deeply, and no one he needs in his life besides his pack.

"Why am I damaged?" He asks.

Ah, now she's embarrassed that he's heard her statement earlier. He tastes the change in the air. Her embarrassment shifts to determination a moment later though.

"You don't know where you're from or where you're going. You sound like you came out of the last century, and while your clothing isn't cheap, your sword is even more expensive." She lifts her chin at him. "Yet you can't be a rich nobleman pretending to be a normal man because they don't have manners like you do and wouldn't bother chopping firewood." She narrows her eyes at him. "Are you a rounin who's been banished by your former master? Or are you a samurai who hit his head in the river and can't remember where he was supposed to be going?"

He blinks at her. "I do not recall ever being a samurai or a nobleman." No, he's never been any of those, he's certain, perhaps because he is the local god of Mount Hoyoken, but this is his mortal body, and well, he thinks she would be very disinclined to believe him if he said he was a god.

Especially since she met him because he nearly drown himself in a river.

Mortals have such a foolish understanding of how gods are supposed to behave, as if they could not be injured, could not have faults and foibles and hurt each other and themselves just like mortals do. For all his life, he's seen others do foolish things. Foolishness is something that gods and mortals share.

She pats him lightly on the cheek as if that will knock loose something inside his head. "You really don't remember a thing about your occupation? That sword isn't cheap." Of course it isn't, it is the only one that he's forged in all the realms. His sword can kill a god and deserves recognition for how dangerous it is.

It isn't as though she knows about that though, so he forgives her for merely calling his sword expensive.

He shakes his head. "No. Not in the slightest." It's only a little white lie. It will mean nothing to her in the long run. He will be here for however long it takes for her to divulge the name of her absent god, and then he will go hunting.

She will hardly miss the strange man she found by the riverbank or care that he'd told a small lie.

"Well then, O-ryoshi-san." She says with a slight nod to herself. "You will have to stay here until you remember where you were going." She sighs, worry evident in the downturn of her lips. "It is, after all, no good to travel if you do not know where you are going."

She is kinder than he thought. How many of his fellow gods would behave with such courtesy to a stranger?

"I will impose then, Nagatori-san." Perhaps if there is another god here, the god of this temple might be inclined to sit up and take notice. Perhaps then he'd be able to get his hunt in. Gods are generally territorial, at least, towards their temples.

"Chikasa." She says. "After all, you have no last name to offer me. It would hardly be fair."

He nods. It is true that he hasn't a last name the same way that mortals do. He hasn't a family to his name either beyond his pack. "Chikasa-san then."

She smiles at him. It lights up her eyes and he can only stand there helplessly for a moment both infinitely short and infinitely long all at once.

His heart clenches in his chest. What it means, he cannot ascertain.

* * *

They settle into a routine of sorts, as she spends her days tending to the shrine, and he does his best to assist in ways that are less conspicuous. He is well aware that mortal men cannot continue chopping wood for eight hours without stopping, or lifting full trees with his bare hands, which are distinctly things that his altered mortal body is capable of.

He is careful not to though, if only because he does not wish to frighten her. Mortals are frail beings.

So he takes breaks, wipes the sweat from his brow, and eats a normal, mortal amount of food, as he imagines it. Sometimes he wishes he'd just told her that he happened to be a god in a mortal form. It would make hiding his feats a moot point, but it is a little late now, and she never would have believed him anyway.

He has never worried over things that cannot be helped really, so he doesn't know why he is starting now.

After dinner every night, she pours tea for him, and then retires to the main room of the shrine to pray.

Tonight, he sits on the wooden walkway outside the shrine. It would be the work of a moment to intrude when she looks away, to trespass and learn the name of her absent god, but something stops him. She has not seen fit to tell him, and he respects her enough not to pry.

"You aren't asleep yet, O-ryoshi-san?"

He had heard her rise and walk toward him, but he pretends to be surprised. A man would not have noticed her soft tread upon the wood. "The moon is full tonight." He says by way of explanation.

There are some things that not even a god can do, though mortals believe that gods can do everything. He is never more aware of his own limitations than when he looks up at the round autumn moon. _The brother I abandoned is alone._

"You'll be able to find your way home." She's also looking up at the moon, but she does not see what he sees. For her, the moon is just the moon, something untouchable and distant, is all. For him, the moon is his brother, and his brother is alone. "I know you will."

Somehow, this young mortal woman cuts to his heart without even really knowing anything about him at all. She knows him as O-ryoshi, a mortal man who has lost his memories dependant on her kindness and searching for what he's lost, but how could she know that he, Okami no Ryoshi no Otoko, has always wanted Tsukuyomi to return to the morning sky and for the brother of his heart to reunite with his love?

Why is it that she can make his normally jovial mood pensive?

"How old are you, Chikasa-san?" What invisible hand had given her wisdom beyond her years?

"I am nineteen this year, O-ryoshi-san." She turns to him with an impish smile. "And you? You cannot be more than twenty-seven from the way you look."

 _More like twenty-seven centuries give or take._ She is only nineteen. Her entire life has been nothing more than a passing thought. She had not even been born the last time he set foot off his mountain.

He'd always known that mortals led short lives, but never to this extent. At this rate, his short trip might indeed span her entire life. "As you guessed." He says, "I am twenty-seven." _Centuries. I am Okami, and that means I was given form twenty-seven centuries ago._

"Really?" She giggles to herself, her head propped up on her hands. "I didn't expect to be so right!" It's such a little thing, yet it delights her, so he doesn't mention anything about it. And if it's built on a deception, well, he tries not to let it trouble him overmuch.

He is normally so unfailingly honest, but with her he had begun with a miscommunication that has now spiraled into lies.

If any god could see him now, they would not let him forget it, as long as he lived.

They sit in silence for a comfortable moment before he tries to fish more information out of her. "How did you come to this temple?"

In a moment, her mood goes from delighted to melancholic. "My uncle sold me to the temple after my parents died because he needed the money to send my cousin to school." She shrugs. "That is life, I suppose."

"You were sold?" _How can a person be bought or sold?_ There is no god that would dare to presume that they owned another's being, so how would mortals delude themselves as to think that they would be able to own another's being and then barter that for things like money and food? How could anyone even put a price on a soul?

It simply isn't done.

She smiles sadly and turns away. "I was another mouth to feed, and the head priestess of this temple needed a successor." Her lashes are heavy with tears that will not fall. "Kaede-san died waiting for our god to speak to her two years ago."

"You've been alone." He reaches out to her, and she sets her head on his thigh. He smooths a hand through her hair. "You will not be alone again." Again, he curses her absent god, for what sort of god neglects — he has to admit, he's not much better than the god of this temple.

He surely must have worshippers, but he rarely bothers with the mortal lives beneath his mountain. They do not need him to care to flourish perfectly well, and he would much rather rest than work. He imagines that they are well though.

They do not need him, not truly. Not as Chikasa does. They have each other. Chikasa has no one.

"I'm sorry." She sniffles, the scent of salt wafting into the air. "I didn't mean to cry, O-ryoshi-san. I do not cry normally."

"There's no guilt in being sad." Her quiet sadness makes him ache in ways that melodrama cannot. There is such strength to her, for how else has she survived? "Do not think you cannot cry in front me."

A watery laugh, and she sighs. "You must have been a samurai, O-ryoshi-san. You wouldn't speak so prettily if you weren't."

It's beneath his station to pretend to be a samurai, but she is no longer miserable. It is, perhaps, enough. "If I was or if I wasn't, I do not remember enough to know." Another lie. _I am Okami, but you do not know that._

They sit like so for a long time, his hand in her hair as he stares up at the full moon, her head in his lap as she falls asleep.

When the stick of incense behind them burns out, he picks her up and goes back in.

* * *

"Chikasa-san! Chikasa-san!"

He'd been fixing the edge of the roof of the shrine when a small girl races into the dusty courtyard. He can smell the faint scent of blood on her, even from high above. _What cause does a little girl have to do with blood?_

"Haruko-chan?" Chikasa emerges from the inside of the building, wiping the water from her hands with a small square of cloth. "What's the matter?"

"It's Yamato-san!" The little girl huffs and puffs with her hands on her knees. "He was sawing wood for a new table and now he's injured, you've got to come quick!"

So that is what it is.

Someone has injured himself. But why are they here to see Chikasa?

"I'll be right over." She glances up in his direction. "O-ryoshi-san? I'll be going into Kakunodate for the day, will you watch over the shrine for me?"

Haruko-chan glances up at him curiously, but as of yet does not say anything. She looks like she's bursting with questions to ask about the stranger on the roof.

"I will." He nods to her and turns back to the roof tiles.

"Chikasa-san?" Chikasa and the little girl walk hand in hand out of the shrine grounds. "Who was that on the roof?"

"That was…"

He hides a smile behind his hand. The things he overhears when mortals think they are out of earshot are amusing. So often they try to hide their curiosity, disapproval, or admiration, and yet still can't manage it successfully.

In the room directly below him is the central shrine of Chikasa's absent god. She is away now.

It would be easy for him to slip down and take a look.

It would be easy.

 _My uncle sold me to the temple after my parents died._

A betrayal of trust. She has already suffered plenty without him adding to the mix.

What would she think, coming back to the temple with the doors of the shrine open, and him gone without a trace? Should he go down to look at it now, the urge to go tear out the throat of the one who had harmed her so would be too great for his conscience to hold him back.

No.

He cannot go down to look.

If he should know that name, it will be because he has earned the right to know it.

* * *

"O-ryoshi-san!" She sounds entirely too amused by his plight. "You look silly."

Ah, well.

He supposes that if Tsukuyomi ever saw him like this, he'd laugh as well. _My foolish little brother._ He would say, a fond light in his eyes as he attempts to brush the soap bubbles away. _Do you know that you have a long standing grudge with water?_

As it is, it is Chikasa's hands that attempt to rub the soap away from his hair. "How did you get soap in your hair?"

"Perhaps I scrubbed too intensely." He hasn't the faintest clue honestly and wouldn't be able to explain even if he knew. "The soap bubbles are quite light."

It was most likely because he'd stopped paying attention once more.

He'd been thinking of where he might find sesame candies for Goya, if he should at least attempt to return for a brief visit to the villa, no more than the space of one stick of incense to explain that it is likely he will not be back for at least a few centuries.

And somehow his hand slipped, and he is as he is now, dripping wet with soap suds in his hair.

She giggles as she towels his hair. "Well, at least we know now that someone else had to do your laundry."

Or no one ever did his laundry because his white robe is impervious to dust and grime, and he would only have to travel back to Amaterasu's realm to get it replaced if he stained it with blood.

Still, he wears mortal clothing now, so it certainly needs washing at regular intervals, or he wouldn't be able to stand the scent of himself.

"Why do you think that?" He mutters, half to himself and half to her.

Goya would laugh her head off if she saw him like this, and so would the rest of his pack.

None of his pack are particularly _shy,_ and his first lieutenant is the worst of the lot. His pack sister has never been afraid to mock his slip ups, and he honestly prefers it that way.

There is no leadership through fear after all.

It is better to be loved than to be feared.

"You would have learned different by now." She finishes toweling off his hair, and they stand there for a moment, soft and unbroken. "Perhaps you were a nobleman after all." She smiles. "If that is the case, I am sure they will send someone to search for you."

A nobleman.

He considers it. Amaterasu is the ruler of all gods, and she calls him little brother.

Perhaps that gives him a different sort of status, but the realm of gods follows different rules than that of mortals.

He is no nobleman there, merely Okami no Ryoshi no Otoko.

"Perhaps." He murmurs. He has no idea if Goya has even noticed that he has left the mountain yet.

Tonight then. He will return to Mount Hoyoken for a brief visit when Chikasa sleeps.

* * *

He steps past the door of the courtyard that night when the crescent moon is high in the sky. He concentrates, and a brief pause later, leaves the mortal body he'd wrapped about him behind as an empty husk.

Turning, he catches the suddenly slack flesh and marvels at the slight differences. It is still his face, but without the red fangs.

It is still the same length of hair, but without the white silver color.

The wide eyes are brown, not gold.

After living for a few months in this form, he'd forgotten that he does not look as he normally does. _How strange._ He thinks. _I feel some attachment to this form that I've built as a disguise._

As it is, he stashes his mortal body in a bush just outside the courtyard door, careful to hide it from prying eyes — no need for Chikasa or a well meaning passerby to see it before the sun rose — and vanishes with the breeze.

His right foot hits the smooth polished stone on the walkway outside followed quickly by his left. He is out of practice after pretending to be mortal for so long and would have tipped forward, but his hand flashes out, and catches the low hanging branch of a small tree.

He is saved a tumble into the dirt by virtue of fast reflexes.

What a lovely thing it is to have his own body back again. His mortal body would never have been able to stand it.

"Goya?" He asks.

It is deep night now, and it may be a night when the bored pack decides to go off for a hunt.

He strides off towards the main building, passing the rice paddies and herd pastures, the long long rows of neatly tended crops and the natural spring of water that now formed a magnificent pool with a little bubbling stream.

At the doorway he pauses to look back at the darkened landscape. It is good to be home, even if it is only for a few brief hours.

There are his bamboo glades, most beloved by Amaterasu as a source of woven baskets. There are his gardens, formed lovingly of stone and water.

There are his crops, tended by himself and by his pack.

Only the other members of his life are missing.

"Okami-nii?" Goya stands there in the dark, a summer yukata wrapped loosely about her shoulders. "Where have you been? We searched for you during our last hunt."

In the pale moonlight, her shoulders and neck gleam a pale bronze. Her hair is left free without even a band to tie it with, and it flows about her face soft and black like strokes from a painter's brush.

Worry. She hadn't even bothered to look presentable.

He has worried her, but he has little time to explain.

Chikasa rises with the sun. He has to return and pretend at sleep before that. "I am taking a trip." He says unhurried.

There are still a few hours before the sun. "Two centuries, likely no more."

Ah, but two centuries are so short. So, so short.

She is only nineteen though, young even as a mortal woman.

He should not feel sorrow.

Short lives are the dominion of mortals. It is both their fate and their blessing. They do not have to reckon with the merciless turn of years.

There need be no sadness over it, but he feels it all the same.

"Two centuries?" Goya rolls the words over her tongue. "Well, do not be gone for too long." And in the pallor of the moonlight, he sees her smile, a flash of white teeth. "After all, we can't be left without a leader for long, _Niisan_." She teases the word between her fangs as she turns to go. "Else I may usurp you and become the Wolf God of Mount Hoyoken."

"It is only a short trip." He tells the space she's left behind. "I assure you, _Imouto,_ I will bring you back more than enough sesame candies to make it worth it."

From around the corner, he hears her quiet chuckles.

Outside, the sky is greying.

He turns on his heel and returns to his mortal form.

And if he is grimy and cold with leaves in his hair when he stumbles inside for breakfast, still unused to the renewed limitations on his limbs after mere hours of freedom, Chikasa merely raises one eyebrow at his disheveled state.

"I went outside last night and fell asleep in a bush." He tells her. "It was not a good decision."

He has turned himself into a liar as surely as if he wove and tied the rope for his own hanging. He is only lucky that she will never know.

All she does is shake her head and laugh. "How unlike you, O-ryoshi-san." She says with a hint of mischief in her eyes. "You do seem so to have a habit of causing yourself trouble."

He has never understood Tsukuyomi's dreamy descriptions in getting lost in someone else's eyes, but at the moment, he might be closer to knowing.

* * *

He goes back to the market inside Kakunodate — this city's name is Kakunodate. She'd said so at one point or another — with Chikasa. She is looking through vegetables, comparing two completely identical heads of cabbage, and he's never been interested in vegetables.

He wanders off.

There is still much to learn to about the realm of mortals.

He had promised himself that he would learn about these spices the next time he came to the market. It's easy to start now.

Chikasa does not seem to be making a decision about those cabbages anyway.

"And what does this one do?" He picks a small amount of red powder.

"That's chili powder." The shopkeeper smiles at him. "Have you come in from the countryside?"

He blinks. "I have never seen this before."

He has come from the countryside. He lives in a villa on a mountain. He attempts to smell the red powder politely, but he gets too close and ends up coughing, tears in his eyes. _I should not have done that._

"A country bumpkin." A young man sneers from the other side of the street.

"And who might you be?" Okami smiles. Mortals are so amusing sometime.

So what if he comes from a mountain villa? He has still seen far more than them.

"Takahashi Nobu." The young man lifts his head a little. "Who're you here with, country cousin?"

The two men on either side of him snigger into their hands.

He's going to forget this young man by the time he leaves the marketplace. He knows it.

He smiles. "Chikasa-san." She is still across the way. She's made a selection over the cabbage and has now moved onto haggling over rice.

"Oh." The young man nods understandingly. There's an edge to it though, because it seems oily, off somehow.

"Don't mind them young man." The spice seller tries to get his attention back. "They've always been the local ne'er-do-wells."

" — That's the priestess who isn't really a priestess because there aren't any gods in this world, isn't it?" Nobu looks like he's said something insanely clever.

He blinks. "I beg your pardon?"

 _You are speaking to a god. One of the older gods, in fact._

"Oh don't tell me you're one of those fools who believe in gods, country cousin." The man to the right of Nobu laughs. "Not that like that poor fool. All she does is pray all day. A really pity too, she's got such a pretty face, but a right prudish—"

He sees red.

"I suggest you change your tone." He whispers. "Or else I'll be forced to be impolite."

"And what're you gonna do about—"

He might have gotten a little bit overboard.

He does not need a sword to threaten anyone, but it is in his hand and against the poor fool's neck between this breath and the next. "I suggest you change your tone." He murmurs, a slight amount of killing intent in his voice. "Or I really will be forced to be impolite."

"A-a mo-monster." The two other men turn on their heels and run off into the crowd. "A monster!"

It is only Nobu now, caught between the blade of his sword and the wall.

"O-ryoshi-san?" Chikasa has returned. "What's going on?"

There's a gathering crowd now, and the whispers are overlapping, making them hard to listen to.

The only clear sound he can hear is her voice. "We were merely having a civil disagreement." He tilts his sword edge up slightly, forcing Nobu to raise his chin. No, he doesn't think he'll be forgetting this face and name any time soon. _Takahashi Nobu._

"Call off your new guard dog, priestess." Nobu hisses, with the little remaining breath he has.

"You're not being very smart right now, Takahashi-san." Chikasa sets a hand on his arm. "Please let him go, O-ryoshi-san. He doesn't mean half of what he says."

"He called you stupid for believing in gods."

Something like pain makes its way across her face. "Perhaps I am foolish."

His sword drops.

His chest aches, but nothing inside him is broken. It just hurts, is all.

It just hurts.

"Do not say that." He says finally, when they are on their way home.

"Hmmm?" She looks up at him. Clearly she's already forgotten what he means.

"Don't call yourself foolish." Ah, how to tell her? She is walking with a god. "You are not foolish for believing in gods."

"Ah." She sighs and looks away, a half smile on her face. "You are attempting to humor me, O-ryoshi-san. Everyone knows that gods exist." She turns her face up to the sky. "But they do not believe that mine cares for me, else he would be more present."

The ache in his chest gets worse. He doesn't know why.

They do not speak more on this matter.

* * *

"O-ryoshi-san?" He turns to find her standing in the entryway of the courtyard, two red apples in her hands, a smile on her face. "A break would not be amiss."

This morning had found him weeding the small herb garden she kept in a corner of the courtyard. "You went out again?" His hands are still caked with mud, so he rinses them off in the wooden bucket in the corner before he takes the proffered fruit.

"I did."

On her other wrist as he takes the fruit, he spies a hint of darkness. _A bruise._ He thinks suddenly. _A bruise the shape of someone's finger._

He draws her hand up. "What happened in Kakunodate today?" As he does so, her wide sleeve falls back to reveal more bruises on the inside of her wrist.

Three more dark shapes that match someone's fingers.

She pulls her hand away. "It was nothing."

Still, the scent of it lingers. He knows very well who has hurt her.

And the empty howling in his mind deepens. "It was the one I threatened, wasn't it?"

 _Takahashi Nobu._ He will not soon forget that name.

"You frightened him." She says without much fanfare. "He told me you were dangerous, and that I ought to turn you out. He also said that he saw your eyes flash gold."

Well, that's unexpected.

Takahashi Nobu did not seem to have much fondness for Chikasa when he'd picked a fight in the marketplace a few days back. Yet, it seems that the young man has seen a little more of his aura that he's done his level best to suppress.

"And will you ask me to go?" He has not yet learned the name of her absent god.

They do not speak of it, if only because she does not want to, and he hasn't the heart to force the moment to an eventual crisis.

Still, if he has caused trouble for her, if she wants him to go, he will cut his trip short and return to his villa.

But he does not want to do that. He would much prefer to stay.

She stands there, looking up at him for a long moment, their clasped hands around the apple between them. "No." She says at last. "I will not ask you to go."

And so he does not go.

* * *

Before he pauses to consider it, the autumn leaves slip away, and the world beneath the mountain is blanketed by winter snow.

Chikasa sews him a new set of robes, thicker and heavier than the ones he owns. He doesn't need it, but he also can't grow fur when she's around, so he accepts her kindness and vows to treat her more kindly.

And rather quickly, in the space of a few months, he finds that he cares dearly for her happiness.

Still, she does not spend her days in silence or sadness anymore, and every night she sits with him in the tea room for longer and spends less time closeted in the shrine. Perhaps this is all he is meant to do.

She only needs a friend to chase away her loneliness. She doesn't need someone to hunt down her absent god.

It wouldn't hurt if he spent the rest of her life here in this temple. After all, he has no pressing affairs. Above all else, he is a leisurely god of whim. It is not as if he has responsibilities that cannot wait.

He has long secluded himself on Mount Hoyoken. A mortal lifetime spent off of his mountain would barely register to anyone except perhaps Goya and the pack, who know that he does not prefer to travel far from home.

Somehow, the thought of how short a time he will stay here hurts him a little more than it ought.

Why does it hurt to know that a mortal life is short by comparison? He has always known that to be true, but it's never hurt him before.

"O-ryoshi-san?" He hears the patter of her feet on the wooden floorboards far earlier than she decides to make herself known.

These days her scent is a mix of tea leaves and woodsmoke. She no longer smells so heavily of incense.

He has been perusing the small collection of books inside the shrine, at least those for medicine and leisure reading. At the moment, a book of history is open on his lap.

History for her, merely recent life for him. He has heard description of this war, but there had been affairs to tend to in the realm of the Kami, and he had returned to Amaterasu's side for a time.

She'd been looking into the eternal flame when she called him to her side. _Little Brother,_ she'd said. _Do you know why the kami do not associate with mortals beyond recognition of their worship?_

He hadn't had the slightest clue. She had merely sighed and smiled at him. _You will learn, Little Brother. Oh, but I think you will wish that you didn't._

Chikasa keeps all of the religious texts in the main shrine, and he has never step foot there.

"Yes?"

"Aren't you cold out here?"

He'd been sitting out on the walkway watching the snowfall.

His mountain villa is the home of a god, and no snow ever falls there no matter what season it is. The dwelling of Okami is one of an endless fertile summer, if only because he wishes it so.

"Not particularly." There is a cold but endlessly pretty call to the white flakes that makes him want to run and jump about, though he keeps himself stationary for the most part. It has been long since he's seen snow.

Not since his last trip off the mountain, when he'd granted the prayer of the bleeding masses.

Mortals are always fighting their wars.

But here, in this temple, it is as peaceful as it is to live in the villa.

"Please come back in." She holds the door open for him, his cloak in her hands. "It's so very cold outside, and you aren't even wearing a cloak."

Ah. This must be another thing that mortals do when it snows, go inside and hide by the fire.

He had just made it to the door when a woman bundled in what looks like at least three layers of clothing hurries into the courtyard. "Chikasa-san! Chikasa-san please come quickly! It's Hotaru. He's fallen ill."

Chikasa glances at the white flurries outside and squares her shoulders. "Come in Shimeji-san. I will need a moment to get ready." With that, she starts to gather her basket. "O-ryoshi-san, have you seen my cloak?"

It is still hanging by the main fire. She had gone to market yesterday afternoon. It had frozen and then thawed, and even now the heavy woolen fabric is damp and unfit for wear.

"You can't wear this and go out."

She continues arranging dried herbs in her box. "I'll have to. There's a young man dying of illness out there." The people in town come to her to ask for healing, as she's a priestess, but they do not ask her to join them, as she's a priestess.

She has always stood on the outside of every gathering.

He can't but help find that this hurts him. For someone so brilliant and kind to stand alone...in some ways, Chikasa reminds him of the brother he could not help.

They are both quick to offer kindness to those they do not know.

He could not help Tsukuyomi, but he can be friend to Chikasa.

"You'll die of illness if you go out there with this." He gives the offending garment a shake. Water droplets spray across the floor. "Take mine."

He wraps her up in his cloak and ties the front about her neck without her able to get a word in edgewise. "I don't want you to get sick."

She is dwarfed by the heavy fabric, looking up at him through that thick, heavy fringe of fur. He knows that she is strong, but she is still mortal, and he worries.

Chikasa is kind above all else. She deserves a long and happy life.

"But you will also need a cloak." She murmurs fretfully. "You'll have to go out to fetch more wood before I can get back."

But he will not fall ill if he is chilled.

He does not have the power to bring back the dead, so he worries for her when she seems to care for everyone a little more than she cares for herself. "Then I will go with you."

He swings the cloak over his shoulders and wraps an arm around her. It is large enough to cover them both, and he is nearly always warmer than her anyway. She cannot worry about him if they share.

The woman standing off to the side glances between them, absolute bafflement in her eyes. He can't be bothered to think of what might be the matter with her.

Other mortals might pass in and out of Chikasa's life, and by extension his own, but he feels little more than amusement and irritation with most of them.

Perhaps that makes him an uncaring god, but he only stays here because he knows that Chikasa would be sad if he left.

Chikasa is dear to him, but he knows little of the others who dwell under his mountain. He is content with that. He is not by nature, a meddler in other people's affairs. He always left that to Tsukuyomi to deal with.

His own affairs are enough to occupy his mind.

"Then thank you, O-ryoshi-san." She turns to the other woman. "I'm ready to go now, Shimeji-san."

* * *

They make their way through the snowy streets together, Chikasa holding her basket, and he holding the umbrella to keep the snow from their heads.

"How long have you been staying at the temple, O-ryoshi-san?" The older woman asks.

"Not long." He has only been at this little temple at the foot of Mount Hoyoken since the beginning of summer. "Why do you ask?" He doesn't think he's particularly interesting. At least, he has not made himself so, at any rate.

"You seemed very close to Chikasa-san." Perhaps his question wasn't proper. He detects a slight hint of embarrassment in the response.

He doesn't press it further. It neither amuses, nor interests him to begin with, so there is no need to think further on the matter.

The scent of decay and death that hits his nose when they enter the house almost makes him want to turn around and go back out the door.

At least, the snow smelt clean.

But he doesn't, because Chikasa's raced forward, hurriedly asking for clean boiled water and a light source. "Why didn't you call me before?"

The gathered townsfolk hem and haw, but cannot give her a specific reply for why they had not summoned her for the young man currently dying in bed.

There's something like judgement that he smells, a judgement that veers towards anger and guilt. This is no clean place to stay.

As she works, he is drawn aside by the same woman who had come to the temple to bring them here. "O-ryoshi-san." She begins "What intentions do you have towards Chikasa-san?"

He blinks. "Intentions?"

"You are a young man living with an unmarried young woman." The woman says, her chin raised. "It will become the talk of Kakunodate if you are not careful."

"Chikasa is kind enough to let me stay." He replies, his eyes straying to where he knows she is. "I fail to see how this is the talk of others."

"It is improper." Ah. He's made someone angry, though he hardly knows why. "Here in these parts." The woman adds when he looks back at her. "Who knows what absurd rules they have where you come from." He ought not to have heard that, and he ought not be angry.

Gods and mortals do have different rules.

He wasn't aware that living with Chikasa in the temple was in any way _wrong._

Mortals have such strange rules.

Why does it bother them so much that a friend lives with a friend? What business is it of theirs?

He ought not be angry — this woman is no more than a mortal, and when had the opinions of mortals bothered him? — but he is _angry._

And this is a mood that does not pass so easily as his other ones. He is at a loss as to why.

"How is it improper?" Mortals and their notions of rules. He has never understood them and likely never will.

"Chikasa-san is a priestess and can love no mortal man for all her days. Do not tempt her to stray."

"What a miserable form of existence." He mutters. It is not as if _Chikasa_ chose to become a priestess. Her uncle had apparently sold her and doomed her to be a solitary young woman with an absent god. What an absolute injustice. All deserve to be loved somehow.

Not to mention, he's hardly a mortal man, and whoever and whatever she loves is her own choice, not to be dictated by anyone else.

Something sounds like a sob in the next room. The scent of tears... _Chikasa._

He exits the conversation with the older woman without pausing to be polite or to care.

He pauses in the doorway.

The dying man has become a corpse. Chikasa sobs brokenly by the deathbed.

He hesitates, suddenly stricken by a terrible sense of space and distance. There is no welcome for him here.

Death is something that mortals feel more sharply than he does. What does he know of death? What does he care for a mortal's passing?

It does not touch him.

Death cannot touch him, unless he wishes to die.

He has never considered the concept before.

By normal means, he cannot die, and like most gods, he has little sympathy for a mortal's passing.

What does it matter when they share different lives?

He stands there with his hand on the doorframe for a long, long moment before he steps forward into the room. "Chikasa?" He asks, a hand on her shoulder. "Are you alright?"

"I couldn't save him." She sounds so heartbroken when she turns to look up at him. "I don't know why they didn't call me beforehand. I don't know—"

He brushes a few of her tears away with his thumb. "Sleep." He says, a touch of power heavy in his voice. "It will heal." He doesn't know why she would cry so miserably for the young man now dead if it was not her fault she could not save him, but it matters little to him.

She is hurt, but she is alive. So she should rest, and they can go back to the shrine so she can heal.

She slumps against his shoulder, her breathing deep and even. Her face is pale from the strain still, misery cloaked around her in ways that his power cannot disperse.

He acknowledges yet one more thing that he cannot erase and picks her up gently.

What good is power if it cannot keep her from harm? He does not know.

There are weeping women in the front room when he passes through, and men with hard eyes, and anger in their scents. "I don't know why you called an tainted priestess, Shimeji. You should have known that she'd be no use."

He would not have paused, had it not been for how they spoke of Chikasa. He does not care for the death in the other room like she does. There is no pain in his heart because of it.

He is, after all, a heartless god. Even among gods, the whispers claim it so.

He is a god who has never loved, not like other gods. Their liaisons with each other do not interest him.

Amaterasu calls him little brother with a fond smile, as does Tsukuyomi, though Susanoo has never looked at him with anything but distaste.

He is a heartless god.

But they had spoken ill of Chikasa.

So he pauses.

"Tainted?" He asks. _How could you call her tainted with that dirty mouth of yours?_

"Not as if you wouldn't know." One of the men blusters. "The way you hold her is evidence enough of how far she's strayed."

In the back of the room, he notes a face he has not seen since that day at the market. _Takahashi Nobu._

 _The way I hold her._ He considers it. _What's wrong with the way I hold her?_

He holds her with a touch more care than he would hold another person, but he is not aware that there is something wrong with _care._

"Chikasa is tired." He says. "I was not aware that I was supposed to leave her here in your care and return to the temple by myself." He is slow to anger, slow to speak.

He is not and has never been someone easily provoked to rage, and yet now he toes the line. How strange it is that he toes the line.

What has angered him is no small thing. Yet at the same time, he is well aware that others would find it little.

 _A mortal girl._ He almost hears Susanoo scoff. _All the goddesses in the realm lining up for a moment of your attention, and you choose a mortal girl to be angry over._

 _What a dumbass._

It is only that he does not think the same.

He snaps his fingers at the umbrella still propped against the doorway, pulling it to him with a small bit of power. He summons his cloak in the same way, though he wraps only Chikasa in it this time.

He has never needed a cloak except to keep her happy, and he doesn't want her to catch a chill.

When he turns back to look at them, they do not say anything more.

There is only an uneasy silence under his gaze.

He leaves, though he is still uneasy. _What did I do wrong? Why is there now tension between Chikasa and the people she lives next to?_

The umbrella bobs above his head with no hand to hold it.

* * *

She wakes later that evening, still coughing and pale. He snaps his fingers to summon a cup of tea. "You've caught a chill." He says absently as he helps her up. "It's best that you rest for now."

She tenses in a way that she has never done with him before, staring dumbly at the teacup in his hands.

He considers it.

It is only a cup of tea in a teacup, the same as any other cup in the world. The fact that he has summoned it does not make it any less a cup of tea.

"Is there something wrong?" He asks.

She breathes out, her head resting against his shoulder. "O-ryoshi-san." She begins. "Are you an oni?"

He almost laughs, and his efforts are not enough to prevent an amused huff from leaving his lips. "No, Chikasa. I am not an oni."

What a funny thought. _An oni? How have I suddenly become an evil spirit?_ He passes her the teacup. "Drink your tea, Chikasa."

She takes a sip of the tea, cold sweat beading at her temples. "True." She whispers. "You cannot be an oni, because an oni wouldn't be powerful enough to live on the temple grounds."

Onis are weak evil spirits for the most part. They wouldn't be able to live in a temple for as long as he has lingered here, even if the god of this temple pays little attention to it.

Evil spirits do not dwell where there is the presence of a god.

He is certainly more powerful than an oni can ever hope to be.

She is cold, so he pulls the blanket over her more securely. "Why did you think I was an oni?" He asks her.

She coughs, shoulders shaking so badly that she has to set the teacup aside. "Because you are not a man." She says when her coughing fit subsides.

"In this world," he muses. "Are the only options a mortal man or an oni?"

What a sad dichotomy that must be.

If one is not mortal, one has to be an evil spirit.

"You won't deny that you aren't a man?"

He considers it, considers her. "You are not afraid of me." There is no trace of fear to her. She is cold, perhaps. She is sad, perhaps.

But she is not afraid.

He had feared her fear, but it seems that she does not fear.

"You didn't answer my question." Her eyes demand the truth from him.

He smiles. "No, Chikasa. I am not a man."

She sighs, though she does not move away. "Then are you a bakemono?"

 _A shapeshifter._

Well, he supposes that such a thing is true. This is after all, his mortal form that he is sitting here with her with, and his wolf form can be as small as one of his foot soldiers or as large as a house. But it is not what she means. He is no bakemono youkai.

And that is what she had asked about.

"In a manner of speaking." He sighs. "Is it important to you?"

His lies are back to haunt him, because it _is_ important to her, despite the short time he's known her. She wouldn't care to ask if it wasn't.

"You were never a samurai or a rounin or a lost nobleman then." She frowns, teeth worrying over her lower lip. Still, she has not pulled away, so perhaps it is not an irreparable rift between them.

"I never did say I was." He reminds her of this gently. "I try not to lie to the people I meet." But he has lied all the same. _I didn't expect to be so right!_ It had been such a little thing, that brilliant smile, such a little thing.

He is twenty seven centuries old give or take. It is hardly the same as twenty-seven years.

"But you let me assume." There is hurt in her eyes. "So you didn't tell me the truth either. O-ryoshi-san, is that your name?"

Ah. He is caught then. He has no more ground to give up. "It is not my full name, no. My full name is O—"

She lays a finger over his lips. "If you tell me, do you have to leave?"

He breathes out. "You might not want me to stay." He is after all, not her god.

And from his limited experience, the realization that one's house guest is a god is generally not a welcome thing.

Or, at least, it is not an expected thing.

"Then I don't want to know your name." She pulls the blanket tighter around her. "I'd much rather you stay."

She must have been so lonely in this place where she is set apart, not invited, but forced to be present.

So lonely, if she doesn't even want to know his name anymore if that means that he will not stay.

"Are you angry with me?" He has lied, and he is not used to being a liar.

Not used to it at all.

Something about the shame of it hurts even these immortal bones.

"Why did you let me assume?" Her eyes fall closed.

"You assumed before I could introduce myself." It had been so sudden. "And in the realm of mortal men…" He sighs.

"Will you tell me a story, O-ryoshi-san?" She asks. "What is your life like when you don't live here?"

"I live in a villa." He says. "On a mountain where it is always a golden summer." He smooths down her hair with a hand. Sleep has tangled it in the back, and it sticks out in all sorts of weird angles that he cannot really help. "I have a brother," _banished for a crime that was not so heinous as the punishment. And I have no way to help him._

"A brother?" She murmurs. "A mother and a father as well then?"

"No." He watches the smoke rise from the candle wick as it goes out. There's a draft from someplace he hasn't found yet, and it's blown the candle out. "A brother and a sister." _And a pack._ His mind adds. _A pack and a little pack sister waiting for my return._

"They have died then?" She asks, small and sad. "You're like me."

Unspoken goes that she is more alone than he has been for a long time.

"No," he says once more. "I never had parents, so I have never felt a loss or a lack."

"Even if you've never had them—"

He does not learn what she was going to say, if only because she falls asleep in the middle of her sentence, her breath even and deep.

He sighs slightly and tucks her back into bed.

And sits there on a chair in the gathering dark, eyes tracing the patterns of the wood on the opposite wall.

* * *

There is fire light gathering outside.

And the sound of drunken voices gets louder, closer than they ought.

This temple is secluded from the city and by all rights, should not be disturbed by the growing voices.

He rises from the chair, joints stiff, and heads to the front door of the temple to meet them.

They carry torches in their hands, led by Takahashi Nobu. Torches and pitchforks, as if that could harm him.

"Youkai." The young man spits at him. "Stop spreading your poison. We don't want your kind here."

"I am not a youkai." He stands there in the doorway, a hand on his sword, and waits. It will not be long before this gathered anger in the air breaks like a storm. And then, what then, he knows not. "And I believe I live here by Chikasa's grace."

This is a temple.

There is no space for death here in this place of worship.

"A tainted priestess." One hard-eyed man spits on the stones. "We don't want her kind here either, led astray by the evil in the world."

"We don't want a priestess who would lie with a demon."

"I am no youkai." He says again, suddenly angry. Chikasa is a priestess, that is true. But what does it matter if she is chaste or no?

It is not as if every god demands that their followers give up their entire lives to worship and service.

He himself has certainly never asked for such a thing from what priests and priestesses who have called on his aid once upon a time. All deserve to love and be loved.

Chikasa is no different.

 _And so what if she lay with me or no? What happens behind another's doors is not your concern._

 _And so what if I love her or no? My heart is not any of your business._

"Liar." Nobu says, though he looks pale. "We all saw your magic. You're no man."

"Of course." He smiles, no longer bothering to hide his fangs. "I never claimed to be a man."

He is slow to anger, but he toes the line.

How closely he toes the line now.

The uneasy whispering grows louder.

Takahashi Nobu charges forward, a pitchfork in trembling hands. "Begone, Youkai!" He screams the words, face twisted.

But it is a drunk mixture of hatred and fear.

He is nothing more than a little boy playing at a hero.

Okami parries his wild swing almost lazily. This mortal form will not survive the fight well. Not with all these torches, these wildly spinning lights, and weapons coming at him from all directions.

"Stop!" Chikasa cries, clinging to the doorway in a vain attempt to keep upright. Her cheeks are fever-flushed.

 _Dying._ His mind whispers to him as he freezes to stare at her. _She is dying. If I do not prevent it, she will slip from this world forever._

 _Between the sky and this earth, there will no longer be anyone called Nagatori Chikasa._

And in his moment of inattention, the five prongs of the pitchfork bury themselves deep in his chest.

"No!" The scream is endless. It echoes in his ears and between slower beats of his heart even long after it has faded from the air.

It sounds like despair.

How easy it would be to tell her that he will not die of this. His vision blurs.

But he will not die of this.

It is a puny wound compared to the one in his heart.

"You dare desecrate a space set holy?" Chikasa's footsteps sound behind him. He cannot see her face, would not be able to see it even if she was in front of him, this mortal form will not live for much longer, but he imagines she is angry. "Do you know whose temple you stand in?"

The silence is deep. "You would dare to kill in Okami's temple?" She asks. There is fluid in her lungs, weakness in her breath. She is dying.

He sheds his mortal form between this breath and the next. _My temple?_

His temple.

He is the absent god who had caused her so much grief.

What arrogant folly he had to not understand why the fates had brought him here.

The mob flinches back from him. "I wasn't aware." He says, as he raises golden eyes to the wide brown ones of Takahashi Nobu. "That a mortal was arrogant enough to try to kill a god."

White light.

In this night, he is brighter than the absent moon.

"I am Okami no Ryoshi no Otoko." He roars. "Leave my temple."

Faced with his true form, the mortals scatter like autumn leaves.

Behind him, Chikasa's legs give out on her.

He catches her before she hits the ground, and they are gone from this place with his next step.

* * *

"Okami-nii?" Goya lays a hand on his shoulder. "You have been watching her for such a while now. Don't you need a rest?"

It has been two days and two nights.

He wordlessly shakes his head.

Chikasa still has not awakened.

Perhaps he had been too late in taking her here. She has overexerted.

Perhaps she will never awaken.

He doesn't know what he would do if she does not, and he doesn't know what he would do if she does. He has committed a grave sin by leaving her lonely.

Her predecessor had died without him ever meeting them.

A mortal lifespan is shorter than he thought.

"Okami-nii." Goya sighs, her head on his shoulder. "The others will worry about you, and you will not make her wake any faster with your staring."

"I have made a mistake." He says at last. It is not only one mistake. "Goya, how does one make amends?"

In his trip off the mountain, and truly it was a short trip, no more than seven months, he has become a liar and broken so many things.

"You start by saying sorry." She hums softly to herself. "And you continue by righting your wrongs."

She has not asked who Chikasa is.

No one has.

He had returned to the mountain in bloodstained dark clothing, a sick mortal woman clutched in his arms, and a towering unspent rage, and no one had asked any questions that were unnecessary.

"I don't know if this is a wrong that can be righted."

She can no longer return to the temple, to the one place in all these realms she could call home.

She has no reason to like him. He is, after all, the god who has left her lonely and the man who has lied to her.

She has no reason to like Okami, and less reason to like O-ryoshi.

"Perhaps." Goya says at last, as she sinks to a seat on the ground beside his feet, her head laid gently in his lap. "You ought to tell me all about it."

"You pry, she-wolf." He rumbles. "And prying is the dominion of vixens."

Goya bares her fangs at him. "A pack-mate can't ask out of concern anymore? Some god you are."

And that is true.

So carefully he tells her beginning with his whim to search for mortal tea and ending with the reason for his fury.

He is angry with the mob for forcing his hand, but he is more angry with himself for not telling the truth.

Goya sighs when he is finished. "You will have to present her with many tokens of affection to win her back, Okami-nii." The she-wolf rises, a wide grinning smile on her face. "But you'll be able to win her back, silly foolish Niisan. She likes you."

He hasn't the faintest idea how she discerned such news, but he hasn't the time to ask her, for she skips out the door. "I'm going to wrestle with Harunosuke now. Have fun, Okami-nii!"

And he is left alone again.

"You really are Okami-sama?"

Chikasa's awake, her eyes sweeping over his form, taking in the differences.

His hair is white. His eyes are gold. There are two red fangs gracing his cheeks. He wears white, a ruff of fur over his shoulders.

"Okami no Ryoshi no Otoko." He murmurs. "You didn't want me to tell you."

A weak excuse at best.

She turns away from him. "I don't want to talk about it."

There is salt in the air.

"Why are you crying?" He sits on the edge of her — his, it used to be his — bed, his hands clasped uselessly in his lap. "And more importantly, what must I do to make you laugh again?"

"How can you be Okami-sama?" She asks him. "You nearly drown yourself in the Nakano River."

"My foot slipped." He says. "I assure you it was not intentional."

She turns back around, tears forgotten for the moment as she smiles through them. "Even gods have such moments?"

"Especially this god." He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "I have always been clumsy, Tsukuyomi often said so."

She laughs, watery and indistinct. "I guess this means that I just didn't have eyes to see." She smiles, a little bitter around the edges. "I tried to talk to you for so long every night, but you were sitting just outside the door."

"I am sorry." He says and finds that it is true. "Will you be able to forgive me?"

If he had known, oh but what does it matter if he had known?

He had always been called a heartless god. Even Goya remarked upon it once or twice. _You have a heart with a wall of ice, Okami-nii._

Yet still, he wants her forgiveness very much, and more than forgiveness, he wants her love. He wants to be the reason for her happiness, wants to stay by her side.

Chikasa sighs, the sound a soft thing. "Perhaps later, Okami-sama. I would have to forgive myself first."

He doesn't want to be Okami-sama. "O-ryoshi. It is still my name." He says when she raises eyes to look at him. "And I would like if you could call me so."

She smiles, the first genuine smile he's seen since she woke up again. "O-ryoshi then." She agrees, a faint amusement in her scent. "You look like you need to rest."

He shakes his head. "No."

His hand finds hers. "Will you tell me about yourself, Chikasa?"

"It is not so interesting." She begins. "I was born Nagatori Chikasa, to Nagatori Saekon and Nagatori Mei. My mother died of illness when I was small, and my father of an accident in the rice paddies. My uncle gave me to the care of Kaede-san of your temple in exchange for money…"

His eyes fall closed.

* * *

 _I was born Nagatori Chikasa._ She'd said to him so many years ago. _Nagatori Chikasa._

It is a name he has not forgotten.

What is ten years to a god?

* * *

"It is a fearful thing to love

what death can touch.

For

your life has lived in me,

your laugh once lifted me,

your word was a gift to me.

To remember this brings painful joy.

'Tis a human thing, love,

a holy thing,

to love

what death has touched."

— Chaim Stern, _It is a Fearful Thing to Love What Death can Touch_

* * *

 **A.N.** So I've been working on this in bits and pieces for at least a good six months, and this monster is still unfinished. So this is part one of Okami's story. I have part two planned, but as of yet, unwritten.

This chapter really doesn't have a lot of the characters we're familiar with in Bloodless, or even Naruto really. A lot of this just builds the backstory of how the Inuzuka Clan came to be, and what sort of character Okami happens to be, so if you've stuck with me this far, I'm really thankful.

And heads up, I'm working on the next chapter of Bloodless. It is half done, and if all goes well, we should be returning to Hana's world by next Friday 12/14/18. I also hope to get several other chapters of my ongoing fics out by Christmas for those of you who celebrate the holiday. If there's a next chapter that you'd really want to see, feel free to send me a PM and I'll see what I can do.

And always, always, I am grateful to the people who support me through this massive adventure. All of your theories and speculations and thoughts about Danzo in the last chapter really cheered me up a lot these past months. Thank you so much you guys.

~Tavina


	16. Bansai (Long Live)

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

"Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely."

― Roy T. Bennett, _The Light in the Heart_

* * *

ANBU Hound realizes something very quickly while observing the council meeting from his position stuck to the ceiling. _There's something about Inuzuka Hana that draws other people to her._

If he's in the mood for honesty, he would admit that the idea worried him, but as he's Hound right now, and not Kakashi per se, he's not in the mood for honesty.

"Objection!" Uchiha Fugaku stands up so quickly that his chair clatters to the floor behind him. "I believe Inuzuka Hana is employed by the Military Police. Elder Shimura, you have no authority to transfer her."

This is the first time that ANBU Hound has seen Uchiha Fugaku _afraid._ The man ought to know better by now, than to show his obvious attachment and concern for someone who could very easily disappear. It doesn't seem to have occurred to him though.

ANBU Hound finds this strange. _He's not normally this bad at politics even if he is bad._

Kakashi doesn't entirely find this surprising at all, because the Uchiha Patriarch is doing what he'd like to do: object, loudly, stridently.

And then Elder Homura says something, and Inuzuka Tsume's hackles come up. "This is _my daughter_ you're talking about Elder Homura."

Elder Utatane says something. ANBU Hound does his level best to keep Hatake Kakashi from falling off the ceiling and throttling Elder Utatane. _Getting anywhere near Danzo is a curse, not a privilege._ He sort of succeeds.

At this point, ANBU Hound has to admit that he's doing a horrible job of being ANBU Hound. He resigns himself. _I am Hatake Kakashi right now, I suppose._

"It's mentioned that I may request one person to travel to the capital with me, from among your ANBU guard simply as a measure of security." Hana-chan says calmly down below. She doesn't seem to be overly fazed by agreeing to the contract, and he can't quite tell if it's her Inuzuka confidence, or if she doesn't realize what her position's like. He hopes it's the former not the later, because otherwise she's less likely to take this seriously enough.

She needs to take this seriously. He needs her to take this seriously.

"You may." Hokage-sama picks his pipe up from off of the table. "As long as they are in the village."

 _And how would she know anything about the movements of any ANBU, Hokage-sama?_

"For this mission, I would like to request ANBU Hound, Hokage-sama." The thing is, she doesn't really _want_ ANBU Hound, every kind action that ANBU Hound offered her had been because he couldn't suppress Kakashi, but she doesn't know that. She wants her friend, Hatake Kakashi.

So he makes sure that ANBU Hound refuses, and takes off the mask. He sees the storm of disappointment building in her eyes, and he knows — knows simply that she does understand the stakes. _She'd been hiding it so well before too._ "Hatake Kakashi is more than willing to accompany Inuzuka Hana on her mission to Kakunodate though." In the one moment that she had despaired, he'd felt his heart clench painfully. He reminds himself that he'd taken a tanto to the heart on a mission in Ame recently — and by recently he supposes that it's been at least three years — so stabbing pain in his chest is completely normal and has nothing to do with _feelings._

Hokage-sama sends ANBU Hound a questioning glare — _What are you doing? —_ but ANBU Hound is firmly suppressed at the moment, and Kakashi's eyes are fixed on Hana-chan's face. _She's starting to get it. Maybe. She looks like she's considering something very hard._

And he's back to normal again. She's alright again.

"Permission granted for ANBU Hound and Hatake Kakashi to accompany Heiress Inuzuka for the duration of her mission to Kakunodate." Hokage-sama has conceded the Hatake Kakashi bit, which is all that he really wants, so he counts that as a win.

Kakashi slips the ANBU mask back on and bows politely which isn't what ANBU Hound would have done, but he's ignoring that at the moment.

"Thank you for granting my request, Hokage-sama." She bows and with a slight amount of emotion that Kakashi recognizes as her attempts at sarcasm, she continues. "Thank you for your most valuable offer to apprentice me, Elder Shimura."

 _Silly puppy. Don't you know that poking Danzo is bad?_ Still, he can hardly ask for more.

He'll take what he can get.

* * *

Hokage-sama gestures for Hound to follow him as he leaves the meeting table. Kakashi wanders along behind the aging leader.

Hokage-sama only speaks after lowering himself into his seat behind his desk on the fifth floor of the Tower. "ANBU Hound." He leans forward. "Or should I say, Hatake Kakashi?"

 _So he did notice that I haven't been able to keep the proper ANBU personality._ He unmasks himself for the second time that day. "Hokage-sama?"

"Inuzuka Tsume has expressed concern—" And he's back, back to that day in the weak morning light, to gravestones and — He didn't know that Inuzuka Tsume still _cared...but like mother like daughter: an Inuzuka always cares._ "— over your continued stint in ANBU." Is all that Hokage-sama says. He does not criticize Kakashi's public loss of persona today. He doesn't ask if it's because of Inuzuka Hana. "You've been an ANBU agent for five years now, Kakashi-kun. Perhaps it's time to take a rest."

And he'd noted himself that Hound is slipping away, but he's not willing to give up ANBU. _What would be the purpose? I have to go see Sensei and Obito and Rin and Kushina-neechan and Otou-san again sometime._ And he supposes that if Hana-chan could hear the direction his thoughts have taken, she'd be upset. The first rule of friendship is not dying. The first rule of friendship is not dying, but all he has is a heavy past and no future to look forward, so she can't blame him, can she? "I don't want to rest, Hokage-sama."

And Hokage-sama actually sighs, smoke billowing from his mouth. "But perhaps you need it." He holds up a hand to stall Kakashi's protests, and continues. "I'll let you decide, but think about it Kakashi-kun. Life goes on after death."

Kakashi bows politely and leaves through the door. _Past. Present. Past. Present. Past. Present —_ The memories are too much. He nearly puts a hand against the wall to steady himself but—

"Hatake Kakashi." There's someone there against the wall. He isn't leaning, because this man does not _lean_ , but he's there all the same.

"Fugaku-san." _What do you want with me? Why are you — oh of course. Your daughter. Inuzuka Hana._ He resigns himself for the threats, the disapproval, the rage that kekkei genkai thief, friend-killer Kakashi is accompanying a little girl on a dangerous high stakes mission, and he's used to blame.

"Please." And it seems as though it's a struggle for the man before him to put his thoughts into words. Or perhaps it's just that he doesn't know how to get those words out of his mouth. Kakashi hasn't the faintest idea, but the struggle in front of him is horrible to see. "Take care of her."

And that's the funniest thing he's heard all day. Hatake Kakashi is terrible at taking care of people. "Maa..." He smiles. "The last time an Uchiha asked me to take care of a girl I jabbed my hand through her chest." His heart is uncomfortably squishing inside his chest again. His right hand burns. And Rin's in front of him again. _Kaka...shi._ He blinks. Rin is put back to the past where she belongs.

"See that it doesn't happen this time." Uchiha Fugaku turns to stride down the hallway. "Or I will make sure that you never see the sun again."

 _It is interesting that he didn't say that he'll kill me. He just threatened to lock me in a jail cell for the rest of my life._ Kakashi muses, but he's too tired. It's too much, and he can't find it in himself to care.

* * *

He's assaulted at his local grocery store the next morning. Or well, he's sort of assaulted. It's mostly his feelings that are assaulted. As an adult, he doesn't have room to say that he was actually assaulted, especially not by a ten year old boy. "Hatake Kakashi."

 _Oh look. It's a chibi-Uchiha._ Thank Kami that Uchiha Itachi looks nothing at all like Obito. Nothing, whatsoever. They shared the same dark hair and dark eyes like ninety percent of the rest of their clan and that's it. Uchiha Shisui was the hardest to talk to, the one that laughed and smiled almost exactly like how Obito used to despite not being late all the time.

Uchiha Itachi just looks angry, and even when he smiles, he doesn't remind Kakashi of the friend he could not save. There's a sharpness to the little Uchiha Heir that Obito had never aspired to.

The most recent Uchiha prodigy had been the talk of the jonin break room a few months back. _He chose to work in Crypt as his former jonin sensei's apprentice, didn't he?_ People had wondered why Uchiha Itachi would bother with a desk job instead of heading straight for the Black Ops or more promotions. It had been such an uncharacteristic path for a young prodigy to take.

Kakashi doesn't bother to wonder why. It's clear from a mile off that Nara Ensui is an overprotective mother hen when it comes to his team. And Nara Ensui knows very well what living in the Black Ops is like given that he'd married a retired ANBU agent. ANBU Mamba had ruined men and toppled empires in her day, but the last mission she'd taken to Kusa had nearly sent her home in a body bag, as it is, it was a close job in Konoha General. She'd dropped Anbu for Intel after she recovered.

People don't give desk job Naras enough credit, in his opinion. Most of them were capable of plenty more than what they do — it's just that they don't aspire to that much — but Nara Ensui seems a little different than most. Kakashi just can't seem to put a finger on what the difference is though. Still, it has little to do with the Chibi-Uchiha in front of him.

"Uchiha Itachi." He acknowledges at last. He has a fairly good idea why the Chibi-Uchiha's following him around in the grocery store. _It's Inuzuka Hana's fault isn't it? Everything that changes in my life is her fault._

"You're going on a trip with my sister." Uchiha Itachi states, and he looks so much like Uchiha Fugaku in that one moment — it's the exact same minute frown, the exact same set of the lips, darkening of the eyes and air of disapproval, although Chibi-Uchiha hasn't quite managed the heavy crushing _weight_ of his father's glare — that Kakashi wants very badly to laugh hysterically. _Like father, like son. But I am nothing like my father._

Hatake Sakumo was good and kind and honorable and placed the lives of his comrades above his own and _selfless,_ always so damn selfless, and Hatake Kakashi is — well, no matter. _I am who I am._

"I am in fact going on a trip with Hana-chan." He smiles brightly at the boy, and hopes that Chibi-Uchiha doesn't press further.

If at all possible, the mood around Itachi darkens still further. "They call you friend-killer Kakashi in the Chunin Breakroom."

 _Ouch. Right in the gut._ And there's Obito again, they'd have to leave him behi — Kakashi blinks and very carefully puts Obito back in the past where he belongs. "That's not a very nice thing to say, Chibi-Uchiha-chan."

"I just wanted to tell you." And this is the darkest glare that Chibi-Uchiha has managed yet, though it still doesn't match his father's. "That if anything happens to Hana, they won't find your body."

Kakashi feels his eyebrow rise. "Somehow, I don't think you'll be able to make good on your threat, Chibi-Uchiha-chan." He mutters under his breath.

In another few years, perhaps, Uchiha Itachi's star is rising fast after all.

But right now? That threat is nothing more than empty words.

Kakashi could kill him blindfolded with both hands tied behind his back. Not uninjured, Uchiha Itachi _is_ a prodigy, but certainly a thousand times out of a thousand, he'd still be alive at the end of the fight, and Itachi wouldn't be.

Hatake Kakashi had been Konoha's rising prodigy once in his day. What's happened afterward...well, that's not the issue, is it?

Uchiha Itachi steps forward very carefully. "I don't care if it takes ten years or a hundred. If you hurt my sister, you will pay the debt to me in blood." There isn't anything angry in the boy's face, just calm surety. The sun will rise in the morning, and set in the afternoon. He is an Uchiha. If there's a debt that he's owed, then it will be paid in blood.

Kakashi turns away. _This world will break you and that easy confidence of yours, Chibi-Uchiha-chan._ "I wasn't planning on it." Hana-chan is his friend. She deserves to be fought for. If there's anything his life's taught him, it's that friends deserve to be fought for.

He's learned that lesson only because it's been beaten into him with the blood on his right hand and the stinging in his covered eye. Sometimes he wishes he wasn't so stupid. If he wasn't, would they still be alive?

He goes off to collect carrots for the trip. They wouldn't make it to the capital in a day after all, and they'd still need to eat.

Chibi-Uchiha doesn't bother to follow him. Their conversation had accomplished everything that was necessary on both sides.

They understand each other perfectly.

* * *

He ends up standing on the porch three hours early. "It's rare for you to come here, Kakashi-kun." Inuzuka Tsume steps out of the doorway.

In the morning light, she looks younger than her twenty eight years, the mascara on her face more vibrantly red. It hurts, because it's the same look she had that morning, that morning where gravestones still loomed large.

"I'm attempting punctuality, Inuzuka-san." He replies. They both ignore the fact that three hours early is hardly _punctual._

Tsume sits down in one of the chairs. "It's been a long time since you've cared to try for punctuality." She observes, dark eyes fixed somewhere on the horizon.

 _Years and years..._ In the quiet depths of his heart, he can finally admit to himself that he once knew the woman sitting across from him much better, and that there'd been grief between them, shared and given. He shrugs. "I've been jolted." _My life has been turned sideways, by your daughter no less._

There's a hint of a smile on her face, but her eyes reflect years and years of melancholy. "I acted badly that day." She murmurs. "And for that I am sorry."

She's referring to that day, to graveyards, to the rage twisting her face that summer morning, to the sting that he can still feel on his right cheek. She had not said what she'd wanted to say. Inuzuka Tsume who'd always spoken her mind didn't speak her piece to save his sanity. There'd been blame she ascribed to him, but she'd held her silence.

It might have been the only thing that saved him in those months. She'd held her silence when she'd never done so before.

It had given him a little ground left to stand on, when he had nothing to his name.

"Mmm." He doesn't have any words to say, what does one say? There's no etiquette book for this. "Someone told me." He begins. "That I am not a bad luck charm."

Tsume snorts, the sound not at all graceful, but just as he remembers she did years ago, on another porch that he now never visits because that's haunted by the worst ghost of them all. "I can imagine." She rises from her place and opens the door. "Come by more often, Kakashi-kun." _The past ought not interfere with the future._ He hears it in her voice, but he doesn't know if he can manage it.

"I'll try." It's all that he can do, after so many years of not trying anymore. _I'll try._

Tsume nods and without a word, walks back in.

Three large gray dogs slip out of the door and surround him, watching him, wordlessly, silent even among themselves, with serious dark eyes.

* * *

A little boy with wild hair races out the door. "Good morning, Ossan!" He shouts as he clatters down the garden path. He leaves the scent of tears behind. Clearly, his sister leaving again weighs heavily on his heart.

 _Ossan? Surely I don't look that old._ The dogs around him chuckle, still wordless.

Hana-chan appears. "Good morning."

"I was about to sleep in and be late, Hana-chan." _Lies. Why are you lying?_ "But then I remembered that the overeager puppy would leave without me." That part at least, he thinks is true.

The dog she calls Ichi growls. "You stop that." Her partners know exactly how long he's been standing on her porch.

"Can't I talk?" Talking makes him feel more flippant, better somehow. The air is cleaner in the light of the morning, in her frustrated expression, and smiling face.

"You really shouldn't." The one she calls San snarks. "All that comes out of your mouth is drivel." And they mean this in the nice way, where they tell him, much like Hana would, that they dislike his lying attitude, even if it's what helps him stay afloat.

They just don't say it as politely as she does.

She loops her arm through his, stretching up a bit to do so, and he is struck by the idea that she'll hit a growth spurt soon, be all long limbs and sharp smiles and raised brows and crossed arms.

 _She won't be ten forever._ His mind immediately takes a dark turn and conjures up a way for her to be ten forever.

It's the same way Obito will always be twelve, that Rin will always be thirteen, and Minato-sensei — He tucks the thought away. It's not really for the light of day, and he is tired of trying to convince himself that living in loneliness is better than the possibility of losing friends. A taste of friendship is all he needs to remember that lone wolves don't live long.

Something in his heart craves an end to all this aching, all this bleeding, all this unending loneliness.

"And I am everlastingly grateful that it is not the case, Kakashi." He blinks once and remembers that she doesn't know what is going on inside his head, that she's still talking about his lie about sleeping late. "Don't worry, Ichi, Kakashi _didn't mean it._ Right?"

He considers it for a long moment. Did he mean it? "I didn't mean it." _I really didn't. Why don't I?_

"You know," He has no excuse for being lost in thought. He doesn't have an excuse, and still her next words catch him by surprise. "You don't have to make such an exaggerated excuse when any normal person would notice that you have bruises under your eyes." She looks up at him briefly. "Hiding is bad for the soul." She looks at him as though she expects to pry secrets out of his soul from reading his masked face. It really is...alarming.

"Don't worry about it, Hana-chan." She might wear a chunin vest, but he still looks at her and sees someone too reckless, a puppy running too fast into danger and chaos without even taking a moment to weigh the consequences. "We're going on the journey of a lifetime after all!" A journey he hopes they will be returning from. The capital is a dangerous place for blunt honesty, and she's got it in spades. He flashes her a smile and pulls out Icha Icha. "Which really means I should get my reading done before we get to prim and proper land." Not what he means, but sometimes it's better to consider nothing at all.

"Haven't you finished that at least eight times by now?" She's annoyed again, teeth flashing white in the sunlight, grip on his arm a little tighter than it used to be. "Why are you still reading it?!"

So he prods her a little more to see the lightning sparking in her eyes. "Maa...Hana-chan, great literature is to be appreciated eternally you know?" Yes, there it is, the flash of irritation sparking across childish features, a pout and a glare all at once. "Besides, I'm getting to the climatic scene where Masako-chan is confessing her eternal love to both Enji-kun and Daisuke-kun at the same time while—"

"Stop it!" She shrieks and slaps her hands over her ears. "I don't want to hear it!"

Laughter rolls from his throat without warning and eases some of the pressure in his chest. This moment, this moment is one to keep.

* * *

They make camp a ways off of the road, enough that a small cooking fire wouldn't attract undue attention. The rest of their walk has been uneventful, quiet even, despite the usual Inuzuka tendency to break every silence nearby with the biggest blunt weapon they can get their hands on. Hana-chan's Triplets mutter among themselves while they walk, but it is mostly of the nonverbal sort, an ear flick there, a scratch here, and Kakashi doesn't mind it.

He's in the middle of pulling open his collapsible cooking pot when she feels the need to break the silence.

"Kakashi? Do you have a tent?"

"Hmmm..." He strikes an exaggerated thinking pose. "No." There's no real need for one anyway. It's the middle of summer, and Konoha summers are muggy in the evenings and scorching at noon.

He doesn't know why she brought a tent. It is not supposed to rain within the next month, a good thing for shinobi traveling quick and light, less so for farmers, but that is the way of the world.

"Where are you sleeping then?" She looks at her child-sized tent, looks at him, looks back at the tent, and he's well aware of what she's thinking of.

He won't fit in there, but it's nice of her to think of him.

"Maa...don't worry about it, Hana-chan." He picks up several wood pieces and sets about creating a fire. _I'll be just fine outside._

Ichi scratches himself behind his ear. "He can sleep outside." _Nice to know you three are still the same as ever._

"Ichi!" Hana smacks the paw away from Ichi's ear. "That's so rude."

The dog huffs."It's June, Hana. He won't die if he sleeps outside." And that's just what he was thinking earlier, but still, the Triplets and their lack of manners towards him is bothersome, not the worst situation he's come across, but bothersome all the same.

He half suspects it's because Pakkun and the others said something insulting inadvertently and now the Inuzuka hounds are all nursing an unfortunate and uncharacteristic grudge. Ah well, Inuzukas don't hold grudges for very long. Give it a few weeks, it'll die down quick enough.

Hana half growls at them. "No one's sleeping in the tent then. Since no one's going to die by sleeping outside that's where we're all sleeping."

"I'm sleeping in there." That sounds like Ni. "I hate sleeping outside!"

"Ni." Ah, he was right then. This one sounds like San. Ichi is generally more frustrated. "You sleep outside the doghouse every night."

"I don't like getting wet, and it might rain at night." Ichi pads into the tent.

"I'm not sleeping outside if everyone else is sleeping inside." And there's San.

He can't help it, he muffles his chuckles with one of his hands and tries hold it in. They sound like cross toddlers, the lot of them. These days, the Pack is as serious as he is. He misses the days when they sounded like this.

"Kakashi?" Hana's come to join him at the fire.

"Yes?" He can speak without howling with laughter now. That's good.

"What's so funny?"

"Your Triplets are really something." Loyal to a fault, like three adolescents trailing after a ringleader puppy.

The ringleader puppy makes a face at him and pokes at the fire with a stick. "We make more sense than your ninken anyway. They seem to think that Ichi, Ni, and San are somehow not good names."

He tastes the soup absently. It's bland. He must have forgotten to add salt while he was distracted by the Triplets and their antics. He rummages around in his pack for some. "And you're saying that they're good names? Ichi, Ni, and San?"

"You named one of your ninken Bisuke. Biscuit. I don't think you have space to talk." Bisuke is perfectly happy being Bisuke.

He flicks the spare piece of raw cabbage at Hana-chan. "Go be judgmental somewhere else, Hana-chan."

He might have offended her just a little with the cabbage, because she doesn't talk again until after dinner. "Kakashi?"

"Hmm...?" He's reading about the fallout of Masako's double confession, and it's just as entertaining as the first time around, so he's not paying too much attention.

On second thought, he really should have.

"Why didn't ANBU Hound want to come on this mission?"

"Because ANBU Hound is not your friend." He says this before he even thinks about it. Says it without even thinking that she doesn't know a thing about ANBU Hound. He flips to the next page, and stares at it for a moment before he sets the book down. Masako's tears are hardly going to entertain him any further tonight. "You don't get it do you?"

"You're right." She tosses another stick into the flames and watches the orange flames unblinkingly for a moment. "I have no idea what you mean."

"ANBU Hound doesn't have any friends because ANBU don't have friends."

Her shoulders slump. "But you've acted like my friend when you were wearing the mask before."

He remembers. ANBU Hound forgets that he isn't Kakashi at times. ANBU Hound is _not_ a model ANBU Agent despite what other people think. "Hound was lost. Kakashi wasn't." Or at least, he wasn't as lost.

"Thank you." Maybe she still doesn't get it, but if she isn't going to pursue it, he isn't going to offer. She peers over his shoulder at his reading material, so close that he can feel her breath against his masked cheek. "So what's the plan for tomorrow?" It's been a long time since anyone's asked him for a plan, or was unguarded enough to stand so close.

Trust is a fragile thing that he'd lost a long time ago, so he has to relearn the actions, the habits, that come with it. He finds this less troubling than it did when he first realized that he lost it.

He raises an eyebrow at her. "Isn't this mission your affair?"

"I wouldn't mind suggestions." She frowns and crosses her arms. "Besides, I'm trying to figure out how I should introduce you to the Daimyo."

He flips to the next page. "You're Heiress Inuzuka and I'm your long suffering bodyguard." That's the easiest solution. She is an heiress, and being a servant gives him an autonomy in Court that she won't have. They'll need every advantage they can get.

"I don't need a—" Her mouth clicks shut. "Oh, I give up." She pulls her sleeping bag from out from under the Triplets. "I'm going to sleep now." She announces. "Have fun being a _bodyguard._ " Her emphasis of the last word makes him want to laugh again. He's played bodyguard to plenty of others. It's hardly an insult.

"Good night to you too." By the time he looks over again, she's already fast asleep just outside the tent, her head pillowed on San's stomach, a strand of dark hair stuck in the dog's jaws.

* * *

The Capital is the same as ever, loud, boisterous, slightly dirtier than Konoha's narrow, dusty streets. It's crowded too, which always sets him slightly on edge and the chatter nearly drowns out...there. He yanks Hana-chan to one side.

Sure enough, it's warranted as the street clears for a large black horse and its rider.

"NI!" Hana slips from his grasp — he wasn't paying attention, why wasn't he — and dives across the street. For one horrifying moment, he pictures her trampled underfoot.

The rider's experienced though, because the horse is pulled to a halt before it would have impacted where Hana was standing not two moments before. "What did you think you were doing, girl?"

"I was making sure that my partner didn't get trampled by you." Ni had been in the middle of the road.

So that was why she'd run into danger. Something in the vicinity of his heart shudders and uncoils. She's not injured. It's fine. Both of his eyes are uncovered. His hands are in the rat seal. He'd been ready to raise a wall, shock the horse and rider, do something, but it's fine. It's fine.

"And why were you being so irresponsible anyway? You could have trampled someone!" Hana does not think that it's fine. Hana looks absolutely incensed.

The rider's hair is dyed green at the tips. "I don't like your tone." And his words carry an expectation of authority that Hana hasn't caught.

"Well—"

He slaps a hand over her mouth. "My apologies, sir. My lady and I meant no offense whatsoever." He half expects that this rider isn't just some young lordling, but out of sight out of mind. The sooner they can get away from this court official, the better. There's a pricking between his shoulder blades that always comes back in the path of something bad.

And then he learns that he nearly contracted a sudden case of heart failure because Inuzuka Ni is a glutton of the worst magnitude, and he has to physically try to not stab something. "Ne, Hana-chan. You should watch your words more carefully. I'm not sure who it was that we offended today." He doesn't know, but he suspects that young man is rather important.

"Does it matter?" Hana frowns. "I was right. He shouldn't have been that irresponsible as to go charging about on a horse in such a crowded place. He looked a few years older than even you. A grown man should know better than to put lives in danger needlessly."

He sighs, no, nobles do not know that by any stretch of imagination, but there's no time for more words. They've arrived.

"Papers? And state your business." The gate guard stretches a lazy hand at them, that wouldn't have stopped them if they were truly shinobi out to break into the palace.

"Heiress Inuzuka." He ignores the multiple openings in the walls...they don't see many shinobi here. It's not unusual to not have defenses against the uncommon. "And her bodyguard, Hatake Kakashi, here are the Hokage's behest to request audience with Kageyoshi-sama." They don't carry identification papers on normal missions, too much of a dead giveaway, but for this one, it's necessary.

Hokage-sama had provided him with official enough looking papers.

"Your residence is in the Orchid Pavilion." The guard glances down. "Hiruhitzen-ooji has specifically requested the honor of hosting you, Inuzuka-sama." Now that is alarming.

What has Hana-chan been doing to attract royal attention?

* * *

He doesn't have to wait long to find out, just an uneventful night in a very nice set of rooms, where the passing heavy tread of the guards jolted him into wakefulness at every half hour...so it goes. Just before the dawn he gives up on sleeping and turns the facts over in his head. Whomever the Orchid Prince is, he knows Hana specifically, at least by reputation.

Three bowls for three dogs. A servant girl with well pampered hands. The ear of the Daimyo.

The atmosphere sets him on edge. The lack of knowledge almost makes him want to go search for it, but that would leave Hana alone, and that is currently unacceptable.

At about mid-morning, she stops wandering around the gardens and sits down with a sheet of paper, rolling a pebble between her hands.

"Ne, Hana-chan."

She jerks to attention. The pebble shatters with a burst of chakra against the opposite wall. "Kakashi! Please stop startling me."

He stoops over to pick up the sheet of paper that she's dropped. "What is this?"

"Give that back." He hadn't an interest in it before, but she's so desperate to get it back, and he has no idea why.

She trusts him about other things. Why not this one? Why not this sheet of paper? What other secrets does she keep from him that he doesn't know about?

Somehow, if he bothers to really identify this emotion rolling in his gut, he'd probably call it jealousy. She calls him friend, but she won't tell him about everything.

She won't tell him, and it hurts.

He holds it out of her reach. "Tell me what it is, Hana-chan." _What is this paper, and why do you need it back so badly?_

The Triplets slam into him from behind. He lets them do it. It's not like he won't get his answers somehow.

"Listen." Ichi snaps.

She pulls the sheet away from him and stuffs it down her shirt. He'll get his answers later.

He peels himself off of the ground and spits out a mouthful of dirt. Royal dirt tastes the same as normal dirt. "Would you three be any nicer to me?"

San spares him a disdainful glance. "Why would we do that?"

So the Pack has said something that bothered them. He knows he hasn't done anything that Hana can't forgive, and the Haimaru Brothers take most of their cues from Hana very seriously. It has to be the Pack that's made them grumpy.

A child appears from around the corner. "You there!" He marches towards Hana. "Are you some sort of new servant?"

"No." She isn't offended, just a little bit amused, a sharp smile curling on her lips. "I don't happen to be a servant."

The boy puffs up, but his fists tremble slightly. He isn't used to not getting his way. "Do you know who I am?" It's probably a safe bet that this is an important boy, or at least, a very spoiled one.

"No." Hana's smile grows wider. "I have no idea who you are."

"I'm Kageyoshi Hiruka!" The boy stomps his foot. "And Chichi-ue will hear about how you disrespected me!" The sixth prince is just a child.

Not the prince they're looking for then. Kakashi's more concerned about his elder brother.

He tunes out the rest of the conversation to focus on the scant information he has about Kageyoshi Hiruhitzen. He is the Daimyo's second son, his favorite child, the prince of Orchids, clearly important in Court, and he _knows Hana._ Knows of Hana at any rate.

What sort of paper would Hana not want him to see? She's ten, there shouldn't be anything that she has to hide yet.

Abruptly his mind goes back to Iwa no Deidara and Hana's attachment to the Tsuchikage's student. _A letter? A letter from a foreign source?_

 _That would be a problem._

If his suspicions are correct, she could be charged with treason if she doesn't get rid of those papers before someone untoward found them. Something about the thought of Inuzuka Hana's execution hurts him. _She isn't a traitor to Konoha. She isn't._

 _She isn't. She's no traitor._

 _Inuzukas are loyal all the way down to their bones._

But Iwa no Deidara had called Hana, cousin. And Kakashi had learned at his otou-san's knee that family love and family loyalty is at the heart of every Inuzuka. What an Inuzuka calls pack matters.

All too likely, Hana-chan calls Iwa no Deidara pack.

That could get her killed. The thought freezes in his lungs. _Why would a foreign brat be someone you would die for?_

"You seem to be in the business of irritating people, Hana-chan." Oh look, the little prince is stomping across the garden like an enraged duckling.

"I don't like brats." She huffs, bangs rising in the muggy air. "Besides, I get along with people in Konoha just fine."

"From what I remember," might as well check his hypothesis about Deidara-chan's letter. "You seem to have a habit of collecting brats, largely, ones that have blond hair, blue eyes and happen to be the Tsuchikage's student."

"I have no idea what you mean, Kakashi." She musters the fakest smile he's ever seen, eyes turning up into his signature plastic smile. He blinks. _What?_ "You must be getting old." She continues, tapping a finger against her chin. "I'll have to remind you to put your mask on soon." It's an admirable defense, but it confirms what he'd been thinking about. The paper is from Deidara. "And by soon, I really mean right now."

His hand flies up to his face. Skin touches skin. He's not wearing a mask. He hasn't forgotten to put on a mask in the morning since he was three years old.

It's just...not done. He goes in, mind racing. Why had he not put a mask on this morning? By this point, the mask is as much a part of his routine as everything else. They are in enemy territory, and he wanders around showing his face to everyone?

 _What's wrong with me?_

"—didn't think that it was you." There's a young man with pale green eyes in the garden when he gets back.

"Asahano-san?" So Hana does know him, but by a different name. Not her fault she was confused yesterday then.

The Orchid Prince bows. "Kageyoshi Hiruhitzen-ooji at your service, my lady."

"Would you mind telling me when you met my lady?" What sort of person is this Orchid Prince? Is he a help or a hindrance?

"We made our acquaintance at the Civilian Council meeting in Konoha." The prince waves a hand airily in the vague direction of Konoha and takes Hana's hand with the other. "Come along now, we've got so much to do and so little time to do it with."

Kakashi pulls out his book and follows, though he's hardly reading. Asahano-oooji wears three rings, one of them set with a emerald gemstone, two in plain gold on his right hand. The cut of his clothing is fine, but not overly extravagant. He doesn't expect to appear in Court today, or to visit his father then. He would have dressed better otherwise. He's been to Konoha before, to sit on the Civilian Council.

A powerful young man. _He can't be older than twenty-three._ And he's holding Hana's hand like it's nothing.

Just what does he want? Kakashi is not naive enough to forget that everyone in Court wants something. Now all he needs to figure out is if the Orchid Prince wants the same things that Hana does. If not, their position is precarious indeed, considering that they are living in his garden.

"You smell like the idiot we met yesterday." Ni mutters. _Yesterday. The Rider we met yesterday was a prince?_

"Asahano-san?" Hana pulls her hand away. "Do any of your brothers also wear their hair in a high tail?" _Do they dye their hair different colors?_

"Mmmm." He sighs. "They all wear high tails, except for Kasano-chan." _Who is too young to do anything of note._

"This one dyed his hair green." Kakashi murmurs. "And he was riding a large black horse through the market square." He cut a distinctive figure. Asahano-ooji should know which of his brothers they'd met.

The Prince slumps. "Of all the people you could have met...Why do you have such bad luck, Hana-chan?"

"Who was it?" Hana seems to have finally realized the magnitude of her actions yesterday. He wishes it didn't have to be like this though.

"My eldest brother dyes the end of his hair green. He loves horse racing, and remember, I told you this before, he hates outspoken women." This list doesn't sound like a good one. _Hana made an enemy of the only prince more powerful than the one in front of us._ "Please tell me that you said absolutely nothing to him and that he only startled you in the market."

But can they trust the word of the Orchid Prince? Kakashi hasn't discerned that yet.

She winces. "Ummm...sorry?" _She called him irresponsible, a public terror and several other not particularly flattering epithets._

"Congratulations." Asahano-ooji's voice takes on more several degrees of sarcasm. "You've just royally irritated the Crown Prince, my dear aniue Hiruyasu."

"And I told you that you shouldn't have done that, my lady." It's part of his persona, as the bodyguard he should probably remind his lady to not speak out of turn.

The Prince meets his eyes, pale green to dark brown. "For once, Shinobi-san, I completely agree with you. Hana-chan should really stop opening her mouth in public," but then the moment's gone. "Well, all of you, follow me." _For once?_ Shinobi are not people this prince looks well upon then, either that, or his servant status.

Why had he sent an unusually pampered servant to greet them yesterday then? Why is he hosting a shinobi? Why is he pretending to be helpful? There are still too many questions.

Still, Kakashi doesn't trust him. Everything about this makes his sixth sense itch, and he's long since learned to trust his own intuition.

Hana-chan is _not_ safe here.

* * *

The next of the Royal Household that they meet is Asahano-ooji's only full sister, Ai-hime. Ai-hime also apparently showed up yesterday pretending to be a servant.

Kakashi doesn't trust her further than from where he's standing to the door. He's standing right next to the door. It doesn't say anything about his growing paranoia while living in the palace, not at all.

He especially doesn't trust women who wink at him flirtatiously. "You look much more handsome without the mask, Shinobi-san. My apologies for ignoring you yesterday."

"N-not a problem." Ah there it is again, his inability to speak properly. He thought he'd gotten rid of the stutter at age three, but it seems not. He hates flirtation.

He hates showing other people his face. He ignores the thought that Hana's seen his face more times than he can care to count, which is to say the number's passed the number of fingers and toes he owns.

He ignores what that means.

The number of times his team had seen his face, he can count on one hand with fingers left over.

Meanwhile, Ai-hime's focus has left him and centered on Hana-chan instead. "We need to fix your clothing, and your hair, and your makeup. Your posture is already very good though. Chiharu, call in the royal tailor. I need some new clothes made."

"Of course, Saena-hime."

About four hours later, it is clear that if Hana-chan doesn't get some time away from the princess and her attendants, then she is going to scream. "You have to hold your chopsticks two thirds of the way up."

Kakashi's personal thought is that most of what nobles do is entirely useless so Hana-chan can forget all about it when she leaves this place.

Unfortunately, as the princess is an expert in courtly graces it seems that Hana-chan will have to learn no matter what if she wants to get her plan through the Daimyo's court. It doesn't do to look and act like a country bumpkin after all.

Still, she's been remarkably patient with all of this so far. He would applaud her if he didn't know that she wouldn't appreciate his praise in the slightest.

After lunch, Hana-chan sits with one of the attendants so that she can get her makeup done. "It would be nicer if you didn't have these tattoos, Inuzuka-san." Blasphemous. Inuzukas never cover their fangs if they can get away with not doing it. "You have such nice round cheeks, and such a shapely jaw." No royal attendant ought to tell a clan child that her pride is misplaced.

"They aren't tattoos." Hana-chan swallows down whatever unkind words she was about to say and smiles. "They're my clan birthmarks. Without them, I'm not an Inuzuka. Please don't cover them."

Yes. She is _Inuzuka_ Hana, and she is proud of that, as she should be.

Just as he ought to be proud to be _Hatake_ Kakashi.

For they are both the descendants of Okami, so they ought to share that self same pride.

"They cover up how beautiful you could be, and they'll clash so terribly with the blue kimono."

Something in his chest snaps and growls. She'd been prettier in red, but red is apparently not in fashion during this season in Court — another foolishly stupid thing that bothers him.

"My lady doesn't want them covered." He doesn't know why he's angry, Hana-chan has been holding her own about her fangs, and it isn't really his place to say anything since he's pretending to be a servant, but he's angry and he wants to say something so he does. "So don't cover them. Besides, she looks better in red anyway."

She turns large brown eyes up to him. "Kakashi?" _Don't be so surprised. You looked pretty for your ascension day._

"You do." He eye smiles while flipping his book open again. "Don't look so frustrated, Hana-chan!"

Ai-hime looks between the two of them. "Shinobi-san." She says, gently, because she does everything gently, even her rebukes and criticisms are silk. All the platitudes rub him the wrong way. "Please put that horrid piece of literature away. It is not polite to read it in public, especially in front of ladies." And then she turns to Hana. "I haven't heard of an Inuzuka clan before Niichan mentioned that he'd be hosting you, and that he's going to have to ask me for a favor."

It is unlikely that an Inuzuka would have visited court before in living memory, but even so, it bothers him to hear someone else speak to his friend as such.

While he's contemplating the problem, Hana excuses herself and walks out into the garden.

And with that, the ladies turn their attention to him and his lack of court attire.

He nearly suffers before he makes his quick escape. No one's going to make him give up his cotton shirt and flak jacket.

* * *

The next thing of note is that the Crown Prince sends a retainer to come get them, presumably for the offense Hana caused him yesterday at the marketplace.

Kakashi is not looking forward to tea with a brat.

"Hiruyasu-ooji." The retainer bows forwards exactly ninety degrees. "I've brought Lady Inuzuka as you requested."

The Crown Prince is sitting with his back to them at the table. _Rude._ Kakashi notes, though he also notes that his own mood isn't conducive towards civil discussion with all the royal nonsense that's been going on ever since they stepped foot in court.

Kakashi doesn't like visiting the capitol. Normally, all his missions in Kakunodate involve murder. _Maybe she should have chosen Yugao._

There are at least four unguarded exits is the next thing he notes carefully. The Crown Prince does not expect to capture them.

"You're late, Abe." Further, the Crown Prince is irritated and rude. Just like yesterday.

Kakashi really is not looking forward to tea with this brat.

"That would be my fault." Hana walks around the table to sit down at the other chair, and Kakashi moseys over with her. "It must have taken a while to find me."

The retainer makes a quick exit, evidently not willing to deal with the Crown Prince's bratty moods.

"Yes." Hiruyasu-ooji mutters. "The recently arrived _Lady_ Inuzuka is late."

Hana merely rises to pour tea. "Do you like stronger or lighter flavors, Hiruyasu-ooji?"

"Lighter."

Kakashi rather misses his friend's cheekier nature. Her rather passive serving of obtuse in front of His Royal Bratling isn't helping very much.

She uses a small bit of chakra to heat the water. _Raiton chakra._

 _Where did she learn that?_ He'd certainly never taught her, and he doubts her Nara sensei did. "Was there something you wanted me for?"

The Crown Prince takes a sip. "I accept your apology."

" — Comparing me to a public terror, Lady Inuzuka?"

Kakashi blinks. He's rather lost, consider that he's been going through Hana's list of friends to find one of them who would be able to teach her Raiton Chakra.

He's coming up short though.

He knows for a fact that Tsume wouldn't. It wouldn't be any of the Uchiha she knows, especially since Uchiha Fugaku is certainly _not_ Raiton Natured. It wouldn't be Gai either, since Gai is hopeless at most all ninjutsu. It wouldn't be her earth-natured Nara Sensei, or his Yamanaka wife. It wouldn't be any of her teammates either.

So who is it? Who would have taught her the Lightning Release? She wouldn't have been stupid enough to learn it by herself.

"I am not. I am saying that you _are_ a public terror if you do this often enough that everyone knows to dive out of the way."

Oh. That's what they were disagreeing about, His Royal Bratling's public conduct.

The Crown Prince bangs the table with his fist. _Impulsive as well as bratty and rude._ Kakashi makes a mental note of it. _And easily angered._ "Do you know what the punishment is for talking back to a prince?"

Hana leaps to her feet. "I don't, but I'm a shinobi from a clan. I answer to my mother first, the Hokage second and your father third. Before you become the Daimyo, you don't have the power to order me executed."

Kakashi smothers a chuckle.

She's so dramatic.

"You thought I was going to order you executed?" Yup. Hiruyasu-ooji did not expect that to come out of Hana's mouth. "Dear Kami, I don't execute people for talking back to me."

"Well then," she snarks and sits back down. "If I am not being executed, I doubt that I'm going to fear any other punishment you might throw at me."

"You speak like a soldier." Perhaps the Crown Prince isn't just a hot headed bundle of nerves.

Kakashi makes a note of it. He really hasn't been into the Palace enough to know about all these relationship dynamics. _I need to get a good conversation with Asuma in to pick his brain about the royal relationships. Who supports who and all that._

"Forgive me, Hiruyasu-ooji." Kakashi mutters. "My lady _is_ a soldier."

This causes the royal attention to land on him. "Sharingan no Kakashi of the famed Hatake clan." His name's traveled far it seems. He really rathers that it wouldn't. _Famed Hatake Clan._ That can only mean Otou-san. "You tell me that ladies can be soldiers."

Kakashi eye smiles. He knows quite a few excellent kunoichi who would gladly rip out the tongue that's just said that. Yugao, Tsume, and Hana-chan included. "The Hatake Clan has always shared a special relationship with the Inuzuka Clan." The Hatake are the children of Yama, Okami's son. The Inuzuka are the children of Yasuka, Okami's daughter. "And the Inuzuka are matrilineal. My lady is very much a soldier as she is a shinobi of Konoha."

The Crown Prince considers him. "Forgive me for asking this, but how old are you exactly, Hatake-san? Because from what I can recall of the last war, Kanabi Bridge was destroyed when I was fourteen."

Kanabi Bridge.

If he goes his entire life without hearing about Kanabi Bridge again he will thank his lucky stars. Alas, he is Kakashi Hatake, and he is not lucky.

"I'm eighteen." He does some quick mental math. "That must mean that I'm two years younger than you."

"You were twelve when Kanabi Bridge was destroyed." There's a flat note of disbelief in Hiruyasu-ooji's voice. "The samurai only allow their young men to join battle at 15."

For someone who graduated the Academy at age five and then promptly went out onto the battlefield, the thought of being young at 15 is a little obscure.

He's only three years older than 15.

He's lost count of the number of bodies he's left in his wake by now, but there are two that destroy him every time he thinks about it.

He must not think about it.

"I killed my first person at seven and a half." Hana murmurs. "That Kakashi was at Kanabi Bridge is not unusual."

What was unusual was that he was leading that mission.

"You've killed a person before." Oh, look. There's that cute civilian horror. "How old are you?"

For all that Hana is a cute little puppy who can't cook to save her life, she's not a _child._ Not the way civilians think of children anyway.

In Konoha, she's a well respected adult, except when it comes her parents.

Her parents will always think of her as a child. No one else will ever give her that sort of space, not her peers, not her superiors, not her Sensei, and certainly not him.

He's not friends with a child, despite his teasing her for being a puppy.

She's Inuzuka Tsume's daughter. The Inuzuka raise wolves.

"Ten and two months." She chirps.

"Ten?" Hiruyasu-ooji whispers. "You're _ten?_ "

"And two months."

 _The two months bit won't help him, Hana-chan!_

And oh, look, there's the Second Prince that Kakashi hasn't finished plumbing the depths of. "I would thank you if you didn't suddenly commandeer my guest, _Aniue_."

 _Hmmm. A lot of bad blood between these two. Distrust everything they say about each other._

Kakashi edits his mental profile of the two of them to include that knowledge. Whatever Asahano said about his elder brother is suspect.

And he had tried to make it seem like irritating the Crown Prince was a big deal, except all that had happened to Hana after yelling at the Crown Prince in a public square is an invitation to tea.

Not that serious at all if one thinks about it.

The Crown Prince had been irritated, but honestly, who wouldn't? He doesn't know that Hana-chan isn't a child.

"I was having tea with the newest lady in court, _Asahano-chan_. Surely that is not something that you must stage a protest over?"

So Hiruyasu-ooji does have a different face, one that can be more poisonous and flattering than the rash one he showed Hana.

Kakashi likes him a little more already, even if he is a royal brat.

"Aniue, I wasn't aware that you were looking for a royal consort. At your venerable age, I'm sure it's hard for any lady to approach you. Might I suggest several other ladies to spend time with besides my ten year old guest?"

 _You were the one who walked around holding Hana's hand._ Kakashi can't say why he still doesn't forgive Asahano for that, but he doesn't forgive it, and that's final.

"Ah, but Asahano-chan." Hiruyasu-ooji drawls slowly. "The only other lady that I'd take tea with is our beloved imouto, Ai-chan. She is sixteen this year, no?" Hiruyasu-ooji raises a hand to examine his cuticles. "We'll have to arrange a marriage for her soon."

"You wouldn't _dare_ put any ideas in Chichi-ue's head."

Kageyoshi Hiruyasu sends Asahano a truly excellent poisonous smile. Kakashi approves. "Try me, Asahano-chan."

Asahano makes a move forwards, his hand raised. Like an idiot. Except maybe not.

"Stop where you are!" The Daimyo and the retainer that had scurried off earlier makes an appearance. This plot is deeper than it looks.

Both princes drop to their knees. "Chichi-ue. Bansai."

"I never thought I'd live to see the day." The Daimyo paces back and forth, in a state of half apoplectic rage. "That you would ever raise a hand against Yasino, Asahano! What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Forgive me, Chichi-ue. I acted rashly and without thought." Who expected who in this scenario?

The thought bears more weighing.

* * *

It's later that night when he finally decides he needs to get all this into the open. The thought's been gnawing at him all day, and he doesn't want to hide it anymore. "We've gotten ourselves caught in a tangled mess."

So yes, he might have gone through her belongings. What he had found there bothers him immensely. _Why do you have papers on the explosion release, Hana-chan?_

"Un." She groans, and her head drops into her arms. "I don't know anyone who'd be willing to help us."

"So you noticed." Kakashi muses. "All of them want something from you." Kakashi wonders if she knows that he also wants something from her.

He wants his answers, but he can wait a little bit longer.

"Yes." She turns to look at him with utterly trusting eyes. He could almost hate himself a little more. "Asahano-san wants some sort of political thing or other. Ai-hime wants me to help her brother. Hiruyasu-ooji wants to use me, did use me, to discredit Asahano-san." She sighs, blowing her bangs out of her face. "Morimo-ooji's probably the only one who has a straightforward intention in this whole mess. He only wants someone to spar with."

"I don't know about that." He murmurs. "Morimo-ooji appeared at too convenient a time, didn't he? Right when you were at your most frustrated point, he randomly appears in the garden, and acts like the people you would have found at home."

"When you put it that way," she throws up her hands. "He sounds like the most suspicious character of all of them."

"It's interesting." He hates himself. He really does. He didn't have a right to go through her things and look at her papers. He didn't have a right, and he'd done it anyway. They're heading for a fight tonight, only because he couldn't contain his doggone curiosity. "That we haven't met the fifth prince yet, with how many of the other ones that we've seen."

She frowns. "You're right. That is weird."

"Do you know what I'm also right about, Hana-chan?" Kakashi sing songs as he stalks over to where she sits. "You're uncanny ability to collect brats!"

"I have no idea what you mean."

 _Oh, now you're just lying to me, Hana-chan._ That hurts him.

He rather have it be the truth, even if the truth is awful and jagged.

Hatake Kakashi hates a liar.

He slaps a piece of paper onto the desk next to her. "This look familiar?" He can't keep the _breaking_ from his tone. _I call you my friend._

 _But you won't tell me the truth._

 _You won't give me even the benefit of doubt._

She picks it up _._ "You went through my stuff." She sounds a little gutted. Not guilty, just sad.

 _What right do you have to feel betrayed? You betrayed—_

No she didn't.

"You left it out." Another lie. This one his. She didn't leave it anywhere he could have easily seen it. Hatake Kakashi hates liars, and chief among them is himself. Then, he's not above hating himself. "Would you mind explaining why you have notes on the explosion release?"

"I don't have to explain anything to you." She hisses at him as she stalks away. "I don't have to explain anything to a thief and a liar."

Thief.

Liar.

Things he's always hated about himself.

He doesn't let her run away from that. "I'm the thief and liar? That's rich coming from you, Hana-chan." His voice drops lower. "Might I tell you that bloodline theft is a crime?"

He doesn't really think she's committed bloodline thief. She probably can't even use the Explosion Release, but he had been worried about her, and she called him a thieving liar, and he's heard that too many times from too many people for it to mean nothing.

He had called none of them friend before this though.

This accusation hurts more because it comes from the mouth of a friend.

"You think I committed bloodline theft?" She bares her fangless teeth at him, quivering with rage and unshed tears. "How dare you accuse me of thieving something that is my _birthright?_ " _Birthright._ He can't think through the hurricane in his thoughts. "Like you said, _Kakashi,_ that's a bit rich coming from you."

 _A bit rich coming from you._

He stumbles back, a hand over Obito's eye.

It was a gift. It was a gift Obito never would have had to give if he hadn't been a _stupid_ — He was _stupid and Obito had died and Rin had died and MinatosenseiandKushina-neesanandTou-sanandsomanymanypeoplealldead—_

"I'm sorry." She whispers "That wasn't—" Breaking. Everything breaks when he touches it, and so too she is breaking. "I—I, I'm sorry. What I said wasn't true." She smells like anger and guilt and unshed tears. "I was angry that you accused me of a crime, but I shouldn't have brought that up."

He moves back to the table. "No really?" He murmurs. "If you didn't commit bloodline theft." He feels so sick. Everything breaks. Everything's broken, and he's the most broken part of the lot. "Why do you have the explosion release notes?"

"This was written by Tou-san." The page she holds out to him slips from her grasp onto the floor. "It's his seventh birthday present to me."

Oh.

 _Oh._

He forgets, as it is so easy to forget, because she looks so Inuzuka, acts so _Inuzuka_ that her Otou-san _wasn't_ an Inuzuka.

She flees, shoulders shaking.

He sits there all night staring at his hands. _You are an Okami-damned suspicious asshat._

His right hand is sticky with all that blood. All that blood he's never been able to wash off.

She only stops crying when she falls asleep.

Sleep, as it does on so many nights, doesn't visit him.

* * *

Morning comes, but the brightening sky does nothing for him. He is the common denominator in all the relationships he's had that crashed and burned.

Hatake Kakashi is the common denominator, no matter what Hana and Gai have tried to say about it.

He offers her the page that he's reread over the course of the night in silence.

The paternal nature of those words remind him so much of another set of notes—

He doesn't know why he didn't see it earlier. He doesn't know why his mind had jumped straight to the worst possible outcome.

 _I don't know how to be friends with anyone anymore._

But the real question is: Did he ever know how to be friends, or did every friend he have get forced on him because they were too stupid not to go away?

"Thank you." She sniffs, her head in her hands as she angrily wipes away a few tears. Tension in her shoulders, guilt in her eyes, but she's not the one in the wrong.

She hadn't done anything wrong.

An inheritance isn't a wrong.

"Last night." _She accused you, because you accused her first._ And the accusation stings, but it's not as if he was nice before, and all his thoughts keep chasing themselves around in circles. "Last night." He says again, but he can't finish the sentence.

 _You didn't have a problem finishing your accusations last night, Kakashi._

She shakes her head. "I shouldn't have-" _called you a thief and a liar._

"I didn't-" _mean it._

"I think we knew what we were going to say." She sighs. "But I'm not sure that we're ready to say it."

He blinks. "Perhaps." A sardonic smile tugs at his lips. "We're running away again." Most of the time, they're always running.

At least he's always running.

"I'm sorry. I was upset." She's trying so hard. He wonders if she knows what it means. _You won't be able to get rid of me after this. You really won't._ "You took Tou-san's notes." She stares down at her hands. "They were his."

"You're trying really hard." He runs a hand through his hair. She's trying so hard. He ought to try. "I'll not look at your stuff again?"

She finally smiles, even though it doesn't touch her eyes. "I'll not be so prickly."

Three feet of space between them, as wide as three hundred miles.

He takes a step forward. "Are we still fighting, Hana-chan?"

"I forgive you." He didn't ask for forgiveness, but she offers it anyway. It seems to come so easily to her. "You don't have to forgive me."

 _I never held it against you, Hana._

He laughs. He's got heartburn again, because his chest hurts. It _hurts._ "And if I don't, I'll be alone again. I don't-" _I don't want to be alone anymore. I'll stay if you let me._

 _Please let me stay._

"You won't be alone." She leans on the window sill and stares out at the gently bobbing orchids. "Gai-san would be around."

That's not what he wants.

That's not what he _means._

"You know, Hana-chan." He sets a hand on either side of her, and stares out at the flowers. "Hokage-sama suggested that I find a few more friends than Maito Gai. He says it will help with my outlook on life." He tilts his head back and pulls the mask up over his face. "I'm inclined to agree with him on that piece of advice."

 _Please let me stay._

 _Please._

 _I'm so tired of being lonely._

She laughs. "There are plenty of people in the world."

"And only one I call Hana-chan." He wonders briefly if he knows what he means to say. What does he mean?

He wants so badly to stay.

"I'll find you flowers for an apology when we get back to Konoha."

He gets to stay.

She lets him stay.

And the sun rises.

"Overeager puppy. You've already offered me perishing with grace, immaturity, longevity, and forgiveness." He ruffles her hair. _Too many virtues already, Hana-chan. Let's save some for later, or else, I'm going to get repeat flowers._ "What are you offering me next? Nobility, dignity and love?"

"There are still plenty of virtues left to give." She pries his hand off of her head, but doesn't let it go. "Gratitude and remorse have a place in this world as well."

 _But I don't want that from you._

He only wants the space to stay.

"No need for flowers. You can make me fish again."

She pouts at him. "Kakashi, I'm fairly certain that you'll end up eating black stuff. Not fish."

He shrugs. "It'll have character." And their balance is restored.

"It'll be a charred mess." She bounces past him. "And then you'll get sick and wind up in your most favorite place in the world."

"And where would that be?" He really doubts he likes this place.

"The hospital, Kakashi. I know how much you adore Konoha General."

The cheeky — He throws Icha Icha at her.

* * *

Hana-chan and the until then missing fifth prince have an unspectacular conversation about politics. Seeing as Kakashi himself is not particularly well versed in politics, he spends most of it trying to discern the specifics of Seiya-ooji's scent underneath the floral perfume.

It corroborate his story of living outside of the palace complex. With that, Kakashi relaxes just a little. The fifth prince seems like the honest sort.

Then, appearances are deceptive. Kakashi still wants to like the fifth prince though. At least, he's not concerned about the royal catfight if he prefers to stay outside the palace.

The next thing of note is that they are invited to a boating party. Specifically a boating party hosted by the Orchid Prince's Haha-ue.

He likes this boating party so much already.

Not.

He supposes Consort Ine could be considered beautiful, but really, it's hardly important. He just wants to know what the Second Consort wants with them especially since she's probably out to protect her son.

There's a reason he's never signed up to go on a mission into court. The backroom harem drama is enough to make him want to gouge out his own eyes.

All that drama, all that pain, all the murder and blood for who's son gets to sit on a fancy chair.

Everyone knows that the real power in Fire Country lives with the Hokage and his advisors. Kakunodate might as well be an artificial other world.

"Oh, Lady Inuzuka." Consort Ine draws attention to them as soon as they arrive. "I've heard so much about you from Asahano-chan."

 _What do you want?_

There are too many people here, who all want such different things.

Still, by giving the Daimyo two sons, she has some measure of power not enjoyed by any of these women.

"The pleasure of meeting is all mine." Hana-chan bows and says some other flattering words. He wonders briefly if she knows how uncomfortable she sounds doing this.

Perhaps he should offer her a few lessons. He scrapes the idea a second later. Everyone knows when he's being fake. It's too obvious.

"Shinobi-san." The Orchid Prince's second sister hangs on his arm. "Won't you take the mask off? We're all among friends here after all."

"I would rather not." He knew that he was going to regret showing his face to this girl, and look, he's right. Now she can only keep asking to see it.

The Princess turns to Hana-chan. "Would you ask him to take the mask off? He'd look so much better without it."

He almost laughs at the offended look on her face. Clearly, she likes being the only person she knows to have seen his face.

"No." Hana-chan crosses her arms. "Kakashi can wear whatever he wants. That includes his mask."

"Ai-chan." Consort Ine is not trustworthy. To become a powerful consort inside the royal harem is not a task for empty heads, but she acts no different the women around her. _She's hiding something._ "Leave the poor young man alone. He probably doesn't have much confidence in himself."

For as long as he lives, he will not understand why his face is such big deal.

Sure, it's pretty to look at — at least according to Hana-chan — but there are plenty of aesthetically pleasing faces in this world.

"On the contrary," Hana-chan mutters. "I would say that reading Icha Icha in public is too much self confidence, or just not enough energy to care."

He chuckles. "My lady knows me so well."

There's a bit more discussion as his name is bandied about before he notes the distant tremor of a horse's hooves. Just one.

A retainer arrives to announce the Crown Prince.

The rest of the party goes silent. _How interesting._ Kakashi muses. _Those who like Consort Ine do not like the Crown Prince. Why did he invite himself to this party?_

But then, he's already decided that the Second Prince isn't a trustworthy one.

And upon further reflection, it makes perfect sense that Consort Ine's backers wouldn't enjoy the Crown Prince.

The two brothers strongly _dislike_ each other after all.

"Ni-Haha-ue." Kageyoshi Hiruyasu kisses the back of Consort Ine's hand. "Allow me to escort you to Lake Toya, as it seems that our dear Asahano-chan is late."

The Crown Prince likes to put on a welcoming face then.

Why is he playing nice with a Consort who doesn't have any reason to like him if he's the Crown Prince?

Kakashi's mind goes back to the scene in the garden. Kageyoshi Hiruyasu is not his father's favorite child, so he ought to play nice with his father's favorite consort.

 _But then why does he want to come here, especially when this is just putting the Second Consort on the spot?_

Consort Ine doesn't want to make a scene. She only smiles. "Of course, if Hiruyasu-ooji is willing to humor an old woman, how could I say no?"

 _Dripping poison._

 _We need to leave this place as soon as possible._ Kakashi doesn't like to ignore the twinge of something between his shoulder blades.

He hasn't survived eighteen years by ignoring his senses.

Every time, every time, he'd felt the pricking on the back of his neck, spreading down his spine, and then the entire world gets shot to hell.

This shouldn't be any different.

"Aniue, it's good to see you."

"The pleasure is mine, Asahano-chan."

No. This won't be any different.

He takes a mental tally of his chakra levels — moderate — the number of shuriken he owns — 56 — the number of kunai — 27 — and where Hana is — directly below him — as he sways with the movement of the carriage.

This is only going to get worse from here on out.

* * *

They arrive at Lake Toya in the middle of the morning, surrounded by Consort Ine's attendants.

The Crown Prince lingers on the fringe of this conversation.

 _Why did he come? What is he getting out of this?_

Kakashi doesn't trust the Second Prince's description of his brother in the slightest now. This particular move isn't the work of a young man who can punish anyone indiscriminately.

Not to mention, a prince out of favor with his father doesn't have the power to air his grudges publically. The Crown Prince is here for some other reason.

Not to mention, Hana-chan had embarrassed the Crown Prince in public, and all he'd wanted from their tea time was a private apology however roundabout.

No.

There are pieces to this puzzle he's not getting, and damn it all to hell if that doesn't bother him.

ANBU missions often come with spotty intel, but currently, this takes the cake.

Politics has never been his strong suit.

You want political maneuvering, you'd want a desk job Nara, but this mission might as well have come from the mouth of Danzo, and he doesn't trust anyone else with Hana-chan's life.

He doesn't trust himself with it either, but it's easier to blame himself when everything goes to shit than it is to find someone else to blame.

So no, he finds no comfort in any of this.

Lake Toya is nearly circular with water clear enough to see to the bottom. Unfortunately, being on the water almost completely cancels the effectiveness of his nose, and he's long learned not to trust his eyes a hundred percent.

There's no reason to expect an ambush, but the twinge between his shoulder blades has become an unfortunate tingling up and down his spine.

He's doing a good job of pretending to be nonchalant though, so no one's caught onto it yet.

"Aniue." The Second Prince gestures towards the party. "Come join us."

"Why Asahano-chan." Hiruyasu-ooji replies. "I'd be delighted." The Crown Prince takes a seat, but no food passes his lips.

Kakashi observes the scene out of the corner of his eye. _Someone else who is suspicious of this venture._

 _But if that's case, where is this attack coming from?_

There's only one other party.

Consort Ine and her children. But that means the Crown Prince should stay away, unless—

 _Is it us that he's concerned about?_

"Aniue." Ai-hime smiles awkwardly. "Would you be so kind as to grace us with your musical talent?" She gestures towards Hiruyasu-ooji's flute, which he had set on the table earlier. "You've gone so far as to bring an instrument with you."

"Actually," Consort Ine pulls an old zither out from under her seat. "I'm very fond of zither music, and it is well known that Hiruyasu-ooji's musical talent is unsurpassed among the princes. Would you be so kind as to play the zither for us, Hiruyasu-ooji?"

 _Oh. This is bullying._

 _But what gives a mere consort the audacity to bully the crown prince?_

This situation is getting curiouser and curiouser.

"You know me so well, Ni-Haha-ue. I do so live to please." Hiruyasu-ooji bears it with seeming grace, though the corners of his mouth are a little too stiff to be pleased. _So this has been going on for awhile._ "Do I have a song request?" He looks to Consort Ine first. "No?"

When he finds nothing there he next turns to Hana. "Lady Inuzuka, as you are the newest lady in court, do you have a request?"

Kakashi…carefully decides to let it go. And further, carefully doesn't consider why he is so bothered by this. He shouldn't be bothered. Nothing's wrong.

"Whatever you would like to play would be fine, Hiruyasu-ooji." Hana-chan is unhappy.

She's noticed the bullying then, but how far she's thought on this, he can't hazard to guess. He doesn't think she's well versed in court politics — most Inuzuka's aren't well versed in any form of politics — but Hana-chan is and seemingly always has been a little different.

"A song for a beautiful lady then." And while Hiruyasu-ooji seemingly says this to Hana-chan, his eyes are trained on Consort Ine's face.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Kakashi ignores the song in favor of the incredible undertones of accusation. There's no way this is at all romantic, but what it really means is yet to be understood.

Consort Ine is pale.

What a strange way to react to a romantic song.

The deep unease in his back doesn't go away.

He very nonchalantly pushes his hitai-ate up. There's something more —

Under the boat. The only place to hide in the clear waters of Lake Toya is under the boat, but they would only be able to do that if—

 _It was all a trap._

 _But a trap for who?_

His eyes meet Hana-chan's. He doesn't have time for warnings, but, good, she knows.

Five shapes leap out of the water towards the boat.

Hana-chan throws herself at the nearest of them, a kunai in hand.

He has to trust that she'll take care of herself. He unsheathes his ANBU order tanto and joins the fray himself.

 _Masks, not ANBU._ The Sandaime would have notified him if there would be ANBU in the near vicinity, no, he recognizes these masks all too well. _ROOT._

 _What hand does Danzo have in this?_

Still, this fight is a little too easy somehow. He's already dispatched one, and Hana-chan is not full of holes.

He doesn't delude himself. If Danzo wanted Hana-chan dead, then she wouldn't be able to survive very well, even if he was here to help. The fact is though, Hana-chan isn't dead.

Danzo doesn't want her dead.

 _What is going on here?_

 _Why—_

They aren't the targets.

In fact, of the royal outing, only Hiruyasu-ooji has been attacked. _The Crown Prince._

 _But what has he done to warrant his removal in Danzo's eyes?_

He doesn't have time to think further as he flips out of the way of a wooden spike. _Kinoe._

The child who had called himself Yamato, but also Kinoe. Mokuton.

Danzo doesn't even want to avoid culpability with this one. The Shodai's cells are rather...noticeable after all.

"What do you want?" He asks when they meet again blade to blade.

"I can't tell you that." Kinoe responds. Still, this isn't a fight to the death despite the two ROOT agents Kakashi's killed already. He still expects that there's going to be hell to pay for this later, but at the moment, there's no reason to think about it.

They got in the way of his mission orders, in the way of his own promises that he's still not certain he isn't going to break — protect Hana-chan. Protect friends, pack, pack, _pack_ — so now they're dead. He'll worry about paying the toll for those deaths later.

Behind them, there's a rather impressive explosion. So Hana-chan's learned the Explosion Release.

Kinoe turns and starts to flee across the water, but not before throwing one last pair of kunai in his direction.

Kakashi dodges them and follows.

* * *

"We're far enough away now." He says after they reach the opposite bank. "What do you want?" It's easier asking this than asking what Danzo wants. They both know it's what he's asking about in the end.

"I still can't tell you that." Kinoe looks at him through wide eyes behind the mask. "I just have a warning for you, if you want to hear it."

"What makes you think I'm letting you leave here?" It might be a hard fight. It might be a dangerous fight. He might get injured during this fight, but he still doesn't doubt that he can wipe out this last person and leave whatever Danzo's goals for this mission a complete wash.

He and Kinoe might have a tenuous bond, but the bad feeling in his spine hasn't gone away even after the other four on this mission have been completely wiped out.

"Because I don't think you're actually a friend killer." Kinoe stands there without weapons. "And because our orders were related to the Crown Prince."

Kakashi isn't foolish enough to believe then, that the ROOT agent is harmless. A shinobi can kill even without weapons. Still, no one's ever said that combination of words to him before _I don't think you're actually a friend killer_ so he hesitates.

And damn him, he shouldn't hesitate for something so _small_ , but he does it anyway.

"Anyway, I'm unilaterally deciding that you need to hear this warning, so at least appreciate that I'm going out of my way to tell you." Kinoe shifts on his feet. "My employer is very interested in your left eye." _Obito's eye._ "And that's the warning. Be careful, alright?"

The ROOT agent leaps into the tree. "And as for Inuzuka Hana-chan…" There's a pause. "Just know that she's important."

It's the way that Kinoe says 'important' as if that means something more than Danzo's attention…almost as though Kinoe _cares_ about what happens to Hana-chan…

Kakashi turns on his heel and vanishes.

* * *

 _Stupid. Stupid. Stupid._

It didn't look like Hana-chan was the focus of the attack, but Kinoe had said important, had—

He's dropped the ball. He's fucked it all up again.

When he gets back it'll be—

The deck of the ship is littered with the parts of a person — Hana-chan's handiwork — but no Hana-chan bloodied and dying. He hasn't failed yet. Not yet.

Not _yet._

He takes in everything else. The Consort and her various hangers on and children are crowded together at one end of the boat. The one farthest away from the scene of their killings.

He's killed Danzo's underlings now, and he's not stupid enough to believe that doesn't come with consequences, but he's not in the mood to care right at this moment.

Hana-chan is missing.

"Where is my lady?" He asks, pleasantly, because it's easier to trap flies with honey than vinegar.

He doesn't receive a coherent response.

Well, that won't do at all.

"Where _is my lady?_ " He asks once more, a little more agitated this time. There might also being killing intent involved.

"L-lady Inuzuka and Hiruyasu-ooji, h-have returned to the palace." Consort Ine pulls herself together for the most part, though she does not look happy to see him.

Oh, the Crown Prince is missing.

He didn't notice until she mentioned it. No matter.

Hana-chan is alone with only a civilian.

Yet again, he vanishes without a word of warning. As he gets closer to the palace complex, his heartbeat evens out.

If she's made it this far, then there aren't any ROOT agents immediately on her tail.

There's no need to lose his head completely. _She doesn't know what ROOT is._ And to keep it that way he has to make up some story... _nuke-nin from Kiri. That's all. No more, no less._

"My Lady." She's in the company of two princes. "Permission to speak to you in private."

They step out onto the balcony. "I killed the last attacker. They were nuke-nin from Kiri." Even if it is to keep her safe, why does this lie taste so much like ash?

"Oh really." She murmurs."I didn't realize that the Mokuton has traveled all the way to Kiri." _Why are you lying to me, Kakashi?_

The high arch of her eyebrow cuts kunai-sharp.

He winces. "I'll tell you about it later, but for right now we need to go with that story."

He'll tell her just enough to keep her… what exactly? Happy? Satisfied? In the dark? He might as well dig his own grave and cover himself with Doton jutsu.

"Yasi-Hiruyasu-ooji thinks that this attack was a murder attempt." She interrupts his thoughts. "On him."

So Kageyoshi Hiruyasu is no fool. It makes it even stranger that he'd go out of his way to leave the palace for a trip with a group of people he knew wasn't in his favor then. He'd done it for something, because he's no fool, and he'd nearly died for it. "It was." As best as he can guess it, Danzo has some vested interest in messing around with the royal succession besides his plans to gain a sharingan.

"He thinks it's Consort Ine's plan." He hadn't thought that deeply into it, but the Second Consort supporting the plan would make sense.

The only question is how a royal consort would contact Shimura Danzo to begin with, or know that Danzo hired out for such distasteful jobs.

If anyone should know, it ought to be the daimyo's wife.

This is not _normal._ The Daimyo's wife ought to have more power in court than a mere consort, but nothing about this court seems normal.

They will have to proceed cautiously.

"Let me speak about this incident should the Daimyo ask." He might not be the best at politics, but his solution to everything is not to smash everything with a big hammer. "You are my lady. We still have to keep up pretenses."

Court. How he hates the place.

"You will tell me everything." Hana-chan frowns at him, and he knows that this is one conversation he won't be able to avoid. She's persistent when she wants to be. It's what got them here to begin with. "But first I'm going back inside to make sure that there is actually no one left to kill the crown prince."

As it turns out, it's quite clear that Consort Ine wants to kill the Crown Prince, and the Daimyo is just too blind to see it.

And then of course, Kageyoshi Hiruyasu has a relapse of a childhood illness, and it really seems like they won't be able to keep living in the Orchid Garden anymore.

* * *

"Kakashi?" He's escaped talking about this until after dinner, but he won't be able to dodge this any further then. "We need to have a discussion, remember? The nuke-nin from Kiri?"

 _Okami. She still sounds so young._

But who is he to complain about someone else's youth? He'd been angry about Minato-sensei trying to shield him from some things.

 _I am a lying hypocrite._ She's so young. So little and not little all at once.

Was this how the adults in his life looked at him back when he was young? He's not an adult, not really. He doesn't know.

"I'm going to draw a sound proofing seal." He mumbles. "Let me get a brush and ink."

"Meanwhile, I think I'm going to hold your book hostage just in case you decide that we didn't have this conversation before." She picks up Icha Icha, eyes glossing over the cover.

"You wound me, Hana-chan!" He goes to collect a few writing instruments from his pack.

Will she really do anything to Icha Icha Paradise? Probably not. She's not destructive to anything other than the contents of his refrigerator and his locked doors, and if he's being honest with himself, she's destructive for his self destructive lifestyle too. For someone who doesn't have a future, he sure acts like he deserves one these days.

Icha Icha is safe for now, especially since he doesn't intend to run away. Not right now at any rate.

There, soundproofing seal done, so they don't have to worry about ROOT agents or nosey civilians. They'll just hear quiet background noise.

"We need to talk about those nuke-nin from Kiri." She looks up at him with all seriousness.

 _It's her eyes._ He realizes suddenly. Her eyes are so old for such a small face. He's not sure he's ever met a person her age with such old eyes. Then, there aren't many ten year olds who've seen what she's seen, and shinobi live on borrowed time anyway.

"As you guessed." He says. "They weren't nuke-nin from Kiri."

"They're from Konoha then?" She asks. "The Mokuton is the Shodaime's kekkei genkai, isn't it?" She sounds absolutely certain. She's just asking for his confirmation.

"Yes." When she's serious, he has a hard time keeping himself from seeing the ghost of futures possible. "You have to stay silent about this." When she's asking him questions, when she's injured and toasted, when she acts her age, he can ignore the ghost of the woman he knows she'll become in ten years time.

As a child, Inuzuka Hana is magnetic. As a woman, she'll be indomitable.

He's not sure he'll be around to see it, and something about that thought aches more when he lingers on it.

He's long since been resigned to a lack of personal future, had even thought about it flippantly, but now, he rather wishes he'll still be around when Inuzuka Hana-chan becomes a moving storm. There are fools out there who don't know what sort of person they've baited — Hyuga Hiashi comes to mind — and the look of pure terror on their faces when they realize would warm his soul.

But he won't be there to see it.

He wishes, but he really doesn't expect it.

"They weren't under the command of the Hokage, were they?" She pins him with a too solemn look. "You know who they are, and who is commanding them." _Okami save me._

Her perception will be her ruin and his death.

"What do you know?" He's walking down a very slippery slope, but there's only so many paths they can take, and all of them are dangerous.

What is he willing to lose?

"My cousin, Inuzuka Gaku." He'd forgotten about Inuzuka Gaku. He curses himself for that now. "He lost his memory, remember? A few months back, he regained parts of his memories. There was a seal on his tongue. He couldn't tell me everything, but he could say that he was a part of the an _organization._ " So she knows some things, but not everything. Something's rotten in Konoha's center. She knows that. It's already too much. "I'm just connecting dots at this point."

"Please stop." _Please._ He doesn't know why he prefers that she not know, she's still caught Danzo's attention anyway. _You're important to him somehow._ "They were here to protect _interests._ " Maybe it's just because he knows she's not skilled enough to hide her own knowledge behind her too expressive face. She's one suspicious question away from giving away the game.

And if the game is up, if the game is up, where would that leave Hana-chan?

"Like I said, I can only assume that Cousin Gaku's a part of the same organization as the one we ran into this afternoon, because there aren't multiple shady organizations inside Konoha." She continues without noticing his spiking heart rate.

For the better really, she doesn't need to know how much he cares. The fewer people who know how invested he is, the better. "They aren't under the command of the Hokage, but there are precious few people who can create entire organizations under the Hokage's nose and escape unnoticed. I would guess only the Hokage's Council has that power...and Elder Shimura is the only one who commands another sector of ANBU."

Too much. That's too much. "You really are a prodigy." He murmurs. _You're going to be the death of me, Hana-chan._ "Please, stop right there. There is nothing else you need to know. Do your best to forget all about this." And maybe then, this dangerous attention will pass her by.

The path with Shimura Danzo leads only to death and agony. He wants none of that for her.

She peels his finger away with a too small hand, eyes still an age and a half older than they should be. "Does ignorance make me safe?"

He'd been thinking about it, and ignorance doesn't make her safe, but knowledge is fire that she'd burn herself with, and his heart shudders every time she's toasted — One day, it'll be an injury she doesn't survive.

He doesn't want to be around for that day.

He doesn't want that day to ever arrive.

"Because Elder Shimura seems plenty interested in me already." These words strike too close to home. _You don't know half of it, Hana-chan._

"You already had your suspicions." _What is this feeling?_ He runs his hands through his hair in frustration, and if he's truthful with himself, more than a little fear. "And no, I suppose ignorance doesn't make you safe. Your assumptions are correct."

He hasn't been afraid in a long, long time. His own death no longer frightens him, and for a long time, there hasn't been anyone in his life whose death could scare him, but hers, ah hers, that still has the capacity to frighten him. _I can't take another loss, Hana-chan. I can't — not you too. Not after Minato-sensei and Kushina-neesan and Obito and Rin and Tou-san and — not you too._

"Why were they here?" _And as for Inuzuka Hana-chan…just know that she's important._

His hand makes an abortive movement to his face. "There were...circumstances involved." It's his nature to hide.

She lets him go. "Alright."

"Now, that that's over." It's not over. Nothing's ever really over between them, but that's the process. It's put away for now. It's all he can ask. "I assume you'll tell me about your kekkei genkai now?"

"Tou-san was born in Iwa." He'd known that, though it's easy to forget it. "I inherited the Explosion Release from him." A straightforward case of inheritance that led to Iwa's most famous kekkei genkai arriving in Konoha.

It's almost funny.

He'd made such a hash of things. _Paranoid. You're paranoid._

"And your training injury…So that's what it was. Explosions."

She gives him only a slight nod, like her injuries mean nothing to her, and pulls a sheet of paper towards her. "Moving on from that. We need to talk about how we are going to navigate court."

For someone who is so upset about his own tendency to not take care of himself, she's surprisingly hypocritical when it comes to her own wellbeing.

Still, to chastise her is to be a hypocrite himself. He lets it go for the moment.

Nothing is ever really over or finished between them. It all gets picked back up again later.

* * *

The next morning, he moves everything they own into storage seals, Hana's many many papers among them. She goes to find them a new place to live.

Somehow, her Inuzuka nature has won her friends here in this viper's nest. He won't question it. He'd always know that Inuzuka Hana is charismatic in her own blunt way.

If she has more supporters now than she did before, well, that's a good thing.

As it is, she's left Ichi and Ni with him.

"We need to talk."

Those four words are ones that he never really ever wants to hear. He's fairly certain no one ever wants to hear them.

However, the large grey dog who flops down beside him doesn't seem to have read the manual on words that no one ever wants to hear, and likely wouldn't give a flying rat about proper communication etiquette.

Dogs are like that, and wolves even more so.

Whatever the official records said about the Inuzuka Dogs, he's more than half certain that Hana's Triplets are at least part wolf.

"Do we?" He mutters out of the corner of his mouth as he seals Hana's pack on top of his own into another, larger, expanded storage seal. _I want to see anyone getting these out without me._

As Minato-sensei's student, he's at least picked up a little bit about sealing. He's no genius at it, could never keep all the squiggling lines together by pure memory, and afterwards, using the Sharingan to memorize seals just seemed _wrong_ somehow, so he's never done it, but he can get the job done.

"We do." Ichi huffs from beside him. "We ought to know where you stand."

Ni flops down on his other side. "And where you want to stand."

The two of them stare at him with dark eyes, as if daring him to run away from the conversation.

"Do you really not know?"

Is their unfriendliness towards him really because they don't know where he fits? Are they asking him to tell them where he fits?

Will that make everything better?

He doesn't get to decide where he fits.

"You're not blood pack." Ichi scratches his ear with a foot. "But you're not team pack, or family pack either. What are you?"

"I'm friend pack." Even though he knows—

"That doesn't exist." Ni looks at him as if he is a very stupid child. "You can be team pack, or you can be family pack, but all friends are family so friend pack doesn't exist."

All friends are family to the Inuzuka.

"What pack are you?" Ichi asks. "Or are you not-pack?"

Inuzuka have either pack or not-pack. Either brothers and sisters or friendly acquaintances. There's no real in between.

 _The first rule of friendship is not dying, Kakashi._ But until less than a year ago, she'd called him Kakashi-san, too close to be a stranger but too far to be a friend.

He'd used a New Year's wish to change that to just Kakashi, but where does he stand? He doesn't know.

"I just want to stay." Lone wolves don't live long.

And Hana doesn't seem to mind if he stays even if he breaks everything and—

The two dogs next to him scoot closer. "Tell Bisuke that he doesn't get to laugh at us, and we'll be nice to you."

They know more about him than Hana does sometimes, even if the Haimaru brothers are more puppy-like than not on most days. They're more or less okay with him staying even if he still doesn't know the answer to their question.

"I can't force him to be nice." He's finished sealing everything now, so it's time to check back in with Hana-chan. "Can Hana-chan force you to be nice when you don't want to be?"

She's tried to tell them off for being rude before, but it hasn't worked as well as she hoped.

Ichi huffs at him. "But you're older. Shouldn't you know how to make them stop laughing?"

He frowns. "I will give them a stern talking to when I get back." He can at least ask what's started this whole mess. Maybe it's all just a misunderstanding.

* * *

He knocks once on the doorframe of Kageyoshi Hiruyasu's imperial bedroom and waits the required number of seconds to hear the faint 'come in'

"My lady sent me to watch you." The Crown Prince is Hana's ticket out of Danzo's lair, so it's best that he act as polite as possible. They'll meet up again presumably in Tsuya-ooji's garden, but at the moment, she has to get their belongings there.

They might not be on different sides after all. It's best to keep that in mind.

"Did she?" The words are still faint. The man looks like he's trying his best not to cough. The whole room stinks of sweat. "That's kind of her."

Somehow, despite the almost sardonic tone, Yasino-ooji doesn't seem terribly sarcastic. The sincerity is rare Court.

"She is." There's a lot Kakashi wants to ask, but he doubts he'll really get his answers.

He isn't half as good at getting people to tell him things of their own free will as Hana-chan is.

Why a careful man would go on an outing with someone he knew wanted to kill him is one of those questions.

"Value her." Yasino-ooji sighs. "People like her are rare."

Maybe that's why. Inuzuka Hana draws people to her because she's so very real. She shows her love and her hatred so clearly.

She doesn't wear masks, doesn't play games. It's easy to value that.

Kakashi tilts his head to the side. It might not be as hard as he thinks to ask. "You went to the boating party."

"And I deeply regret that decision." The Crown Prince's eyes fall closed. "Ask your question."

"Why did you go?" He suspects it's because there was news of foul play and Yasino-ooji thought of them.

But then that begs the question of why they are so important.

"I heard someone planned to murder a child and her chief retainer." The words are dry as dust blowing in the autumn wind. "And they just walked right into a trap. How could I stay away?"

He's been a shinobi for too long. He forgets how this looks from the outside.

Inuzuka Hana is a child in the eyes of civilians. Civilians are attached to children, even ones that are not their own.

He's been a shinobi for too long. Hana-chan, for all that she is ten, is no child to him.

The silence between them stretches out long.

Luckily, someone comes to distract them from the heaving coughing fits and his own distinct lack of comforting abilities.

Asuma bows as he crosses the doorway. "Yasino-ooji, may I be granted a moment to speak to Kakashi?"

Yasino-ooji merely waves a hand in consent. He seems halfway between sleeping and waking anyway.

Asuma gestures wildly for him to come outside the door. "Kakashi, this isn't the time for games. You've got to come here."

 _What's going on now?_ Ah well, he was supposed to talk to Asuma about the situation in Court anyway. His greatest concern is seeing Hana-chan out of here alive and unharmed. Everything left in Konoha can wait. "What's lit a fire at your feet?"

Asuma makes a face at him. "Do you know the danger you're in?" Asuma leans in. "I heard this just thirty minutes ago…"

* * *

The Twelve Guardian Ninja have uncovered an attempt at a coup.

How delightful. More politics.

His own guardianship of the Crown Prince is passed of to Tuou, and he follows after the three others on their way to speak to Tsuya-ooji.

He largely needs to confirm that Hana is, in fact, fine. Everything else can wait. _Why do you seem to get into more trouble every time I take my eyes off of you?_

"My lady." Ah, there she is, dressed a little differently than when she left this morning — she seems to be masquerading as a peasant boy now for some reason — but still entirely unharmed. Excellent. "And Tsuya-ooji, our apologies for disturbing."

Tsuya-ooji merely frowns, and strides forwards, and the door he pauses and looks both ways before carefully shutting it with nary a whisper. "Now." He mutters rather crossly. "What was so urgent that three of the Twelve Guardians showed up at my estate?"

Given the scope of the conspiracy, maybe the fourth prince also finds his own position precarious.

Kitane steps forward. "You are not a peasant."

 _No really? I thought the Twelve Guardians were made of better stuff._

"No." Hana-chan smudges the makeup until her red fang is visible. "I'm Lady Inuzuka."

Kitane nods to reassure himself. Given that this is his story to tell, Kakashi is patient enough to wait. "Alright, so we've uncovered a plot." He takes a deep breath and centers himself. Kakashi personally wonders if this really warrants this level of concern. But then, he doesn't live here. It's not really on him to know. "Consort Ine approached me this morning with a bribe."

"Sit, Kitane." Tsuya-ooji pulls out a chair.

Kitane sits.

Kakashi makes his way to Hana-chan. "There's more bad news to come, my lady." He's speaking too softly for others to hear, but she should be able to just fine.

He's thankful for all these traits they share between them. Heightened senses aren't foolproof but they're so much easier to work with.

She tilts her head forwards, fingers tapping on his arm. "It figures."

"Now tell us about the bribe." Tsuya-ooji is...unusually eager to uncover a secret. _What does he have against the Second Consort, or is it just that that woman made herself so unappealing to everyone except the Daimyo?_

"She wanted me to turn against Kageyoshi-sama." _Interesting. She loves her son far more than her lover._ "I refused of course." Kitane shudders. "And there was an insinuation dropped that I would regret it."

"Has she made any overtures towards you two?" Tsuya-ooji considers Asuma and Chiriku.

"No." Asuma spits. "But it's likely because she knows Konoha wouldn't support it, and Chiriku's got too much of a moral compass."

 _But no. Konoha does support this, or at least Danzo does._

"And you?" Tsuya-ooji murmurs while staring at him. "What about you?"

Kakashi eye smiles at him. "I was just passing through." _Let's see what you make of that._

Tsuya-ooji's eyebrow twitches. "So we may assume that three of you are still loyal."

"Tuou should still be as well." Asuma murmurs. "Consort Ine hates her." So that's why they'd been convinced it was alright leaving the Crown Prince with her.

"Four of you then." Tsuya-ooji mutters. "And we have no idea what she intends. I will attempt to contact Seiya. One of you go protect Aniue from someone poisoning his rose tea, and keep _quiet_ about this."

"Pardon me," Chiriku-san steps forwards. "But shouldn't we let Yasino-ooji know of this immediately?"

"No." Tsuya-ooji snaps back. "Aniue would start coughing up blood again, and we can't have our Crown Prince in such a state when there are still appearances at court to consider."

So the Fourth Prince sides with his eldest brother rather than his second brother. Interesting.

Chiriku's face falls. "The heavens seem to curse our Crown Prince for no reason at all."

Illness doesn't have much to do with heaven. Then, Kakashi's not particularly religious himself.

A shrine back in Konoha begs to differ. He'd spent Bon there for six years as a child until he couldn't convince himself that he was a child or that the family god wanted to listen to him.

Tsuya-ooji rises. "I do not care what the heavens seem to think." He brushes imaginary lint off of his haori and gestures for them all to disperse. "I only care what I think. And I think that you three need to get back to your daily tasks and not congregate about me so obviously."

He squeezes Hana-chan's shoulder once. "Talk. Alone." Konoha standard so brief he doesn't even think Asuma caught it.

Her fingers move against his side. "Yes."

* * *

They've been stuck in two cramped rooms all night. It had been a sleepless night all things considered.

For him, that is.

Hana-chan had no problem falling asleep. She'd used on of her partners as a pillow, and the dog spent the night chewing her hair. It seems to be normal, enough that she doesn't even mention it when she wakes up, just pulls her hair out of the dog's jaws absently.

"What," she muses. "Would Danzo possibly hope to gain by colluding with Consort Ine?"

"A puppet daimyo?" Kakashi offers. He knows that Danzo was after his — Obito's — eye as well, but there's another thing. _Just know she's important._

He's not willing to give up that piece of information yet.

She casts him an unimpressed look. "Doesn't he have that already? Why would he deploy his own forces to attempt to kill of Yasino-ooji?"

"The organization." He will burn in hell for this. Why doesn't his tongue just stay still? He doesn't normally have this problem. "Was not here simply for Yasino-ooji."

She sits up. "You?" She thinks for a moment. "They were here for your eye."

"Obito's eye." He corrects thoughtlessly, and then freezes. "Your perception startles me, Hana-chan." He had made one motion last night. She'd remembered it again without any prompting.

 _Are you a ghost, Hana-chan? Do you read my mind?_

She shrugs. Of course she doesn't read his mind. If she did, she'd be much angrier with him. Thank Okami for small mercies.

"So theoretically, this was a winning scenario for the both of them. He gets...an eye, and Consort Ine gets a crown prince."

"Yes." He considers their situation. It's worse than he thought. How many ROOT Agents had they slaughtered between them? That's already enough to make Danzo angry. And then he'd let Kinoe go. This can only end badly, but he can't _say_ that. "And we've foiled both of those plots."

Perhaps Danzo would… No of course he wouldn't. He wouldn't have mercy on Hana-chan just because she's ten.

For one, Shimura Danzo and mercy don't belong in the same sentence together. For another... _She's important._

 _Important for what?_ He cannot imagine what.

* * *

"You're different." He's sitting with Asuma in a central room on the bottom floor of Yasino-ooji's pagoda.

Asuma had been silent until now, but alas, the silence wasn't made to last.

He shrugs. "Yeah, so?" He hadn't changed so much since Asuma saw him last.

The last time they'd seen each other in person had been four, nearly five years ago. A funeral. A funeral.

Minato-sensei—

That thought belongs in the past. He puts it where it belongs. _The past doesn't own me. I have a place to stay._

Asuma had left for Kakunodate after another falling out with the Sandaime in the aftermath of the Kyuubi. He's surprised Asuma still hasn't caved and gone home, but maybe he does hate his Otou-san that much.

Kakashi's in no position to judge. _If I'd told—_ That belongs in the past too. Leave it there where it belongs.

"I'm surprised you're here with an Inuzuka girl, Kakashi." Asuma leans back, cigarette dangling from his mouth. "And she's got teeth too."

Ah right. Asuma wasn't around for the beginning of his friendship with Hana-chan. Come to think of it, they'd only really started an acquaintance after the Kyuubi Attack. In the wreckage of the village and the wreckage of his life, a small girl had prevented him from drowning himself in the Nakano River.

"Asuma-san?" Speak of her, and she appears just as though she's been summoned.

He smothers a laugh. She's got the best sense of timing.

Asuma radiates guilt. "I meant nothing—"

"Enough about that really." Hana-chan blows right past his concerns. "Do you know where Chiriku-san is? I need to talk to him."

"Chiriku?" Asuma blinks. "Sure, he should be—"

"Can you go get him?" She has a new idea about something now. There's that determined look that says anything standing in her way is going to have to move. "I need to talk to him."

"Maa..." He looks back at her. "Hana-chan, you're far too excited after having visited a sick man that we depend on."

She sticks her tongue out at him. "Oh hush you." She pokes his nose in a fit of childishness. "I might have found the answers to all of our problems."

He swats at her hand. "Don't be mean, Hana-chan." He doesn't really care. It's good to see her happy again. She's spent the past few weeks decidedly unhappy, partially because of him, but she's happy now, and he likes that enough not to care about his personal embarrassment. "Tell us the good news."

"Kakashi…" She frowns. "I can't tell you if I'm not right."

"Okay…" They both turn back to look at Asuma. _That confusion's unwarranted. I haven't done anything that unusual._ "I don't know what you've been doing, but keep doing it."

He disappears out the door.

"What was that about?"

Kakashi shrugs. "He seems to think that I'm happier than when he saw me last." He is happier than since the Kyuubi Incident.

It's because of Hana-chan.

He has somewhere to stay now. It's enough. He's not alone anymore.

It's enough.

"And when did he see you last?"

"In the graveyard." He'd been there for Minato-sensei's funeral. And then decided the next morning he really wouldn't mind if he fell into the river and died. "Now, Hana-chan. What was it that you discovered?"

"Yasino-ooji's illness. I think I know what it is."

* * *

"It's anemia." He doesn't know when she learned anything about diseases, but it's not like he knows everything that she's learned about. "A blood disease. When there aren't enough blood cells to maintain nutrient levels. It causes chronic fatigue among other things."

Chiriku hums with his eyes closed, and his hands glow green. "You said it was when there are fewer blood cells?" _How does Hana know more than a medic?_

"Yes." She shifts on her feet. "So what's the diagnosis?" She cares about Yasino-ooji.

Not unusual. She cares about almost everyone she meets even if she doesn't seem to notice this.

"Yasino-ooji." Chiriku glances over at Hana-chan. "Does in fact have fewer blood cells than average."

"So it was a blood disease." There's a note of resignation in Yasino-ooji's voice. It has to do with his position in Court then. "Well, it can hardly be helped."

"Can you artificially replicate the blood cells?" _That's an interesting thing to ask._

It's like she knows this illness, but as far as he knows, there's no reason for her to—

 _Don't go down this path again. Don't do it._

His paranoia's already cost him once. He won't make the same mistake again. He's a genius for a reason. He won't make the same mistake twice. Even if he's made the same mistake too many times and lost too much for it.

"For the time being, that is a possible patch." Chiriku concentrates, the green glow grows wider and brighter. "But it's not permanent." He warns. "Artificially replicating blood cells too often will lead to an early demise."

"I'll take what I can get at this point." The Crown Prince props himself up. "I can't languish in bed forever. Lady Inuzuka, thank you."

He bows to Hana-chan.

"Don't do that." She flushes bright red, though not as red as those fangs. "You're the Crown Prince, other people shouldn't see you—"

"Bow?" Yasino-ooji sounds amused. "As far as I am aware-Lady Inuzuka you may correct me if I am wrong, but-you would have killed a person to have had me grovel at your feet after I nearly ran you over on your first day in the capital."

"That was something else."

Kakashi does his level best to not burst out laughing, but it's a near thing. Hana-chan makes a face at him.

Chiriku rises. "As it is, I will return when we need to coordinate our plans."

"Which plans?" Oh yes, they hadn't told Yasino-ooji about the recent developments out of concern for his health.

Best fix that now that he's in no danger of relapse.

"There has been," Kakashi interjects. "Reports that _she_ is attempting to bribe various members of the Twelve Guardians."

"Has she set a date for her plans?"

"Yasino-ooji? Who was Consort Ine before she became consort?" She's thinking hard. Something else is bothering her.

"Imube Ine was one of the many daughters of Imube-sama." Yasino-ooji grimaces. "And one of Chichi-ue's many mistresses before his marriage to Haha-ue."

And something else clicks together in her mind. The look on her face is bitter.

But he can't help that, so he does nothing.

* * *

He heads out with Asuma to find some evidence of the Second Consort's wrongdoing. It shouldn't be hard.

"We just have to target some Imube clan members."

Asuma casts him a look. "You don't know anything about this Court do you?"

He shrugs. "Tell me what's wrong with the decision I made." It's not as though he can't take criticism. It's just easier to cut to the heart of the matter.

"Members of the Imube Clan have the Daimyo in their pocket. There's no way we can target anyone important in that clan unless we want to lose our heads."

"You're really going to let a civilian behead you?" Five years at the capital has changed Asuma then. He's thinking like someone who has to bow to the whims of civilians.

Since when did the Daimyo have power of Sarutobi Asuma?

"You think it'll blow over with Konoha if the Daimyo really wants to make a fuss over it?" Asuma's surprisingly serious. "You don't know my Otou-san if you think you think he'll blatantly flaunt his power just to get me out of trouble."

If anything, Hatake Sakumo had always—

No. Past. Past does not belong in the present.

"Fair enough." He concedes the point. "What do you suggest we do?"

"We go nab a few very minor members of the Imube clan."

Kakashi sighs. "Isn't that what I said?"

"No." Asuma turns down a side path. "We're going to nab the ones that I want to nab, not the ones you happen upon."

Fine, fine. Court is Asuma's hunting ground. He'll concede that too. Whatever it takes at the moment.

If they can get rid of the Second Consort, they can get the Daimyo to talk to Hana at the very least.

* * *

They drag two very unfortunate men to Yasino-ooji's study. "This is unlawful detainment." The one of the right grouses. Kakashi didn't bother to remember their names. It's really not important. "We're your imperial relatives, Hiruyasu-ooji."

Yasino-ooji strides back and forth between them, his hair falling messily out of the high tail. Someone who hasn't slept much recently. There must be plenty to think about. "A correction, Imube-san. You are Asahano-chan's relatives, but you are most certainly not mine."

So the Crown Prince has a spine. He'd been more than he seemed.

The one on the left opens his mouth. "Then you must know that—"

Yasino-ooji unsheathes his sword in one fluid stroke, and examines it very casually. "I _must_?" He runs a finger down the flat of the blade. "I didn't know that there was anything that I _must_ know."

Kakashi revises his sentiment. Make that completely cracked now. Yasino-ooji seems one step away from a complete mental breakdown and a murder spree.

"Hiruyasu-ooji." The one on the right smiles. "Surely there's no need for anger, right? We've just been detained by these..." The man glances over. Kakashi eye smiles and waves at him. _Fuck you._ "Shinobi. We'll see ourselves out."

"No." Retainer Abe blocks the door. "Those who want to commit treason ought never escape." He holds his arm out across the door, a pipe in hand. "Tell Hiruyasu-ooji what you've done."

Now that the Crown Prince is determined to fight, all sorts of people are coming out of the woodwork to help him. How interesting.

Kakashi wonders how long Yasino-ooji has been waiting to turn the tables. How deep are the roots of this plan now set in motion?

"Why must we listen to you?" The man on the right takes a step towards Retainer Abe. "Don't you know that your own position at court is at stake?"

The man on the left sneers. "He doesn't have a future at court."

The sword in Yasino-ooji's hand twitches. "So you admit it then. Consort Ine has paid you to spread lies in front of Chichi-ue. You want Asahano-chan to become the next Daimyo." He doesn't say anything about the bribe.

That is very interesting.

"You have to admit." The one of the left glances at him. "A hot headed prince without any friends or any understanding of the outside world and a weak constitution, compared to a friendly, charismatic prince who often visits Konoha? Which one would you choose?"

"Retainer." Hana-chan steps out from behind the bookcase, two hands clenched into fists. "You have to admit, a black-hearted prince who is willing to kill his brother for a title, or a young man who tries so hard to be understanding despite being crushed by a mountain of expectations? Which one would you choose?"

At the moment, she looks every inch the queen she has the potential to be. Her fangless smile cuts just as sharp.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Lady Inuzuka." Kakashi approves of how many teeth she shows.

"Don't be so surprised." The other one hisses. "She's just a little girl."

Hana-chan blinks. "Yes, I'm just a little girl, so could you please tell me what's going on?" She takes another step forward.

The two cowards take a step back. "Don't be stupid." The one on the left hisses at the one on the right. "She killed two men not two weeks ago. She's not dumb enough to not know what's going on."

So they heard about that too. Kakashi feels inordinately proud, given that he hasn't actually taught Hana-chan anything dangerous. Still, she's his friend, so he's proud of how far she's come.

She takes another step forward.

The coward on the left takes a step back and trips over decorative table, a scroll rolling out of his sleeve.

Kakashi scoops it up. "I think we need to take this." He passes it to Yasino-ooji. "I believe you might need this as evidence."

* * *

The plan evolves once more. Yasino-ooji baits his younger brother with the idea that he will soon be leaving court, and by extension, the position of Crown Prince.

Kakashi secretly wonders how long the Crown Prince had been hiding his true nature from his siblings. _How on earth is Asahano-ooji able to believe that his brother would willingly step aside?_

Yasino-ooji has been planning for a long time to get rid of his second brother and Consort Ine then. Kakashi almost applauds him. He's played his part well.

The man himself has arrived. Court looms before them.

Kakashi falls in place a step behind Hana-chan.

"Lady Inuzuka." Yasino-ooji offers Hana-chan his arm, and nods curtly in Kakashi's direction. "Sharingan no Kakashi."

He puts Icha Icha Paradise away and nods back. "Yasino-ooji."

Court is crowded, filled with overlapping whispers and hurried movement. He keeps his senses trained on Hana-chan, and by extension Yasino-ooji.

 _This is the perfect place for an assassination._

Hana-chan meets more people who could help her goal. _The Minister of the Right, and the Minister of the Left are both in Yasino-ooji's favor._

 _How did Consort Ine not see the writing on the wall? Do not tell me that Yasino-ooji is really that good at acting the weak and dying elder prince?_

Then, Kakashi doesn't know. Maybe he'll ask Asuma later.

He doesn't have much hope for answers though. He and Asuma had wildly different opinions the last time they'd tried to work together.

All of the princes are here. All that's missing is the Daimyo, and then this play can get well and truly started.

"Kageyoshi-sama has arrived!"

"Bansai!" Everyone drops to their knees. Kakashi follows suit. _Good. Hana-chan did too._ "A thousand years of good health to the Daimyo!"

"Rise." The Daimyo doesn't look like much. He's a middle aged man with a ridiculous headdress. "Now, would anyone like to bring any affairs for the day?"

Still, he's a middle aged man in a headdress that could potentially order Asuma's death on a whim. Even Sandaime-sama has to take into account what he wants. It is easy to forget that when in Konoha, or out and about in Konoha's name.

Yasino-ooji disputes with the Minister of Grain about accounts. The tension in the room is about to boil over.

A knot settles between Kakashi's shoulder blades. Asahano-ooji is armed. Yasino-ooji is not.

Should something happen, Yasino-ooji is not his brother's equal with a sword in hand, especially if he doesn't have a sword to begin with.

The trap closes.

The Minister of Grain still thinks he can escape."C-consort I-"

"Anata." Consort Ine murmurs. "It must have been an accounting mistake."

"It wasn't one." Yasino-ooji stalks towards Minister Imube. "Now tell me, what were you about to say?"

The tension worsens.

"C-consort Ine had a propos— I mean, I cannot—"

Kageyoshi drops the scroll. It rolls across the dias. "Ine, what does he mean?"

"Ana—" Everything begins to unravel. "This one is sorry, Kageyoshi-sama, but—"

"But?" So the Daimyo can pry himself away from his favoritism long enough to be angry. "Have I not spent enough money on you? Did you need to install a relative of yours to funnel money towards your own pursuits?" He doesn't turn his head. "Yasino, how much money was it, that was lost?"

"Sixty million ryo." Yasino-ooji replies. "Last year."

"Sixty million—" Kageyoshi-sama sits down, heavily. "Tea." Tuou steps forward with a cup. "I need tea."

Yasino-ooji's smile sticks with him. It sticks with him, because it looks like the smile of someone who has won something he's been waiting a long time for.

A frisson runs down his spine. _It's not because—_

 _The Daimyo is dead. If he didn't place the poison, then he didn't stop it from happening._

"My first duty is service to Fire Country. I could not possibly leave." _No. Of course not._ Underneath his frail appearance and arrogant attitude, Yasino-ooji is an ambitious man. He would not let go so easily. "But I am afraid that I have more bad news to report. I've recently unearthed an assassination attempt on your life."

But who truly planned this assassination attempt?

It doesn't matter. It's already been successful.

"If that is the case, Kageyoshi-sama," Minister Nakatomi steps forward. "I must ask that you punish the vile woman accordingly."

"Surely not," Another minister protests. "How are we to ascertain that Consort Ine is not being falsely implicated?" He tips his head in Yasino-ooji's direction. "It is no offense to Hiruyasu-ooji, of course, but the scroll cannot be considered evidence."

"I can be considered evidence." Kitane strides in through a side door. The net is pulling closer, all the while, the true culprit in this murder will never be caught. "Consort Ine contacted me directly to attempt to bribe my loyalty, I suspect the other Guardians have been similarly propositioned. Are bribing the Guardians the actions of a loyal consort? I must ask that you punish the Consort Ine, Kageyoshi-sama."

"But if that is not enough proof for you." Asuma and Chiriku appear dragging the two members of the Imube Clan formerly locked in Yasino-ooji's basement with them. "We have these two members of the Imube clan who were in contact with Hiruhitzen-oji. Who have been in a plot to take Yasino-oji's life by bribing the imperial doctors."

"You—" The poison works faster with anger. _How clever of you, Yasino._ "You—" He does not finish the sentence. Blood sprays across the dias.

"Chichi-ue?" Kageyoshi Hiruyasu has spent too long acting.

His facial expression is impeccable, without reproach.

Asahano draws his sword, and rushes towards his elder brother's defenseless back. Kakashi doesn't believe for a moment that it's truly defenseless.

Hana-chan and the Triplets surge forward. "Stop this." She hisses. "Or I will break your wrist."

Asahano pulls a knife on Hana-chan, and—

 _That's enough._

Kakashi has a kunai over his throat between one breath and the next. "Maa...I think that's enough, Asahano-chan!"

Hana-chan crushed his wrist. He's so proud.

* * *

Yasino-ooji asks for Hana-chan to sit with him in his Otou-san's sickroom. He still looks like he is grieving, even if he caused that sickroom to begin with. Kakashi doesn't understand it, doesn't understand kinslaying, but it's hard to tell if the Daimyo is kin with his sons at all.

Hatake Sakumo— No. He can't put his Otou-san in the past so many times.

They are far closer than the rest of the court is even aware of.

Yasino-ooji has taste at least. He appreciates Hana-chan's brand of honesty.

Kakashi gets questions from various courtiers.

He props Icha Icha Paradise up in front of his face while guarding the door and doesn't answer anything.

Hana-chan's chances of escaping Danzo have just gotten better.

He's in the middle of reading about Masako's attempts to figure out her future — decently relatable — when Hana-chan finally appears again.

"My lady?" He's gotten a little used to referring to her as such, but that doesn't make it true. She's not his lady. She's his Hana-chan. He offers her an arm.

She sets a hand in the crook of his elbow. "Mission. Success. Soon."

He nods, and taps back. "Good. Home. Soon."

The sooner they get out of the capital, the better he'll feel.

* * *

Fish nibble at him as he dips his feet into the water. They've found the Daimyo's koi pond, or at least one of them here in Morimo-ooji's gardens in the aftermath of everything that's happened.

He's kicked off his sandals, so his feet are bare. "I didn't think we would actually succeed."

Hana-chan sits a little ways off, her hand in the water. She throws a handful of water at him. _Chakra control's gotten better._ "That's so mean!"

But his is better. He makes one hand sign, and launches a wave at her. "It's my job to be mean."

She splutters, dripping, trying to wipe the water from her eyes. Her frustration changes to determination as she scrubs her hands over her face.

Five steps back, she pauses for a moment eyes narrowed, before she charges forward, shoving them both straight into the pond.

They break the surface together.

He spits out a mouthful of water. "Hana-chan!"

She treads water, giggling all the while. "I wouldn't have been able to do it, if you didn't let me."

Quite true. Her intentions were visible from a mile away. If he really wanted to, he could have thrown her into the pond by herself and stayed dry.

Still, it's more fun this way.

Ni takes a flying leap at the pool.

They are caught in the path of the spraying water.

The look on her face makes him laugh. Clearly, she hadn't expected to be drenched again.

There are footsteps on the other side of the garden. He pulls his mask back over his face. A person...closer...it's Asuma.

"Kakashi?" Asuma still looks unbalanced somehow, though Kakashi's sure that whatever changes he's gone through haven't been that much. He's not that different from that day in the graveyard, is he? He isn't. "Are you — oh never mind." Asuma shakes his head. Let it be known that at least Sarutobi Asuma knows when he's lost the fight. "The Daimyo wants his Lady Inuzuka. He says he's about to go mad."

Hana-chan climbs out of the water and shakes herself off, hair flying everywhere as she does so. "Does he want me now, or later?"

"He wanted you two hours ago." Asuma shades his eyes against the glare of the sun. Still, Kakashi's rather certain Asuma's studying him from under one calloused hand and finding that something doesn't add up. "And I'm sure he's about to chew the head off of someone by now."

"I see." Hana-chan shakes her head mockingly. "I bet he wants me to go drink tea with him."

"Actually." Asuma rubs his day old stubble. "It's tea."

Hana-chan groans. "Kakashi, do you want to come with me to take tea with a tiger?"

He shrugs. "Nope." He smiles at me. "I'll sit here and catch up with Asuma, yeah?" He has to sort this out before they leave the Capital.

Asuma looks like he's bursting with questions anyway.

Hana-chan casts him a glare that can't even burn him to a crisp. "Traitor." Her smiles are sharper and more pointed.

He'll have to remind her to work on it later.

"So what's going on with you?" Asuma asks when Hana-chan turns the corner and out of sight.

Kakashi shrugs once more. "What do you think's going on?"

Asuma runs a hand through his hair. "Beats me if I know. Out with it, Kakashi. I haven't the patience for looking underneath the underneath."

"There's nothing to look underneath." Kakashi pulls himself out of the water and into the summer sun. "I made a friend."

"With a little Inuzuka?" Asuma lights a cigarette.

"Something wrong with that?" He asks, lazily swirling a hand in the water.

Asuma holds up his hands. "Nothing. There's nothing wrong."

His body posture says otherwise though. _I don't need your judgement, Asuma._

One hand sign and he drenches Asuma too. "Look underneath the underneath more, Asuma." He singsongs as he grabs his sandals and leaps onto the tiled roof.

Down below, Asuma sighs as his cigarette goes out. "That doesn't even mean anything, Kakashi." He grouses as he searches through his vest for another, dry cigarette to light. "Underneath the underneath is the top, if you must know."

Kakashi smothers a chuckle. Things look better than they do in years, and the afternoon sunlight is brighter than he remembers it should be.

* * *

Bansai- A Japanese war-cry literally "(may you live) ten thousand years," originally a greeting addressed to the emperor, from ban "ten thousand" + sai "year."

* * *

 **A.N.** So, I started this June of last year, but this chapter is a monster, clocking in at ~23K, so I'm okay with it taking 7ish months. At least we now get to see Kakashi POV of the capital arc? I hope it makes everyone as happy as I did when writing it!

Also, I've decided that Kakashi's theme song is Soldier by Fleurie. In other news, Bloodless has a discord now, if anyone wants to join us and discuss stuff. Invite is 8KhM9C6.

Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, favorited, and followed. I really love hearing your thoughts.

~Tavina


	17. Old Winter

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

"I worry there is something broken in our generation;

There are so many sad eyes on happy faces."

— Atticus

* * *

The night is cold and long as he sits here looking out over the village, his pipe dangling from his lips. _Old winter sinking its teeth in my bones._

 _How many more winters are left in me?_ He'd thought of retirement once, as though he could escape the inevitable fate of both the hokage before him, and the short reign of the young man after him.

It looks more and more like an impossibility.

The Hokage lives for the village, cuts away pieces of himself for the village, protects the village, makes hard choices for the village, loses friends for the village, and in the end, there's no retirement from that, despite Biwako's dearest hopes.

Biwako is gone now. It has been years, though he half suspects that nothing will dull the ache appropriately.

The village demands that the Hokage die for the village as well.

After so many winters, it might even be a blessed rest, if not for the question of who he would pass this hat onto next.

He looks at the generations that come after, and see children in the place of the adults he knows ought to be.

Even Jiraiya. Even Tsunade. Even Orochimaru.

He looks at the Shodaime's granddaughter and sees a child running away from her grief the only way she knows how.

He looks at the report telling him that Jiraiya educated orphans in Ame about survival skills — now those self same orphans have created an organization of their own — and he sees the boy who'd never had any survival instinct himself.

He looks at the scientist in his lab across the village and sees the inquisitive boy who'd asked why about everything.

When had they grown up? When had he grown old?

He sighs, sweet scented smoke billowing about his face, obscuring the moonlight on the rooftops for a moment.

Only an empty house is left to him now that Asata has moved out, and Asuma went on assignment to the capital.

In some ways, he worries about his younger son. The village had asked for his time more than his children ever did, and he doesn't quite know where he went wrong with Asuma.

There's fire in his younger son that his elder had never exhibited, and in the deepest moment of the night, there are times when he worries that it will consume Asuma. His younger son seems to have lit himself with with the embers of the cigarettes he smokes. Rebellion for rebellion's sake has never bred anything pleasant, and ashes are ashes.

All ash is the same. It doesn't matter what has burned down. It'll all blow away in the wind.

He rather hopes he doesn't live to see Asuma burn down. He rather hopes that Asuma never burns down.

But hopes mean very little in the end.

The smoke cloud about his face dissipates.

He turns away from the window. There are footsteps on the stairs, the slow tapping of a cane and shuffling steps.

He'd been expecting an old friend anyway. Best this conversation happen now.

* * *

Inuzuka Kaito dies in the early hours of one April morning of what is apparently an accident in RnD. Minato consults him instead of bringing the suspicions directly to Danzo, who is only one level below them in the Tower.

Hiruzen heaves an internal sigh. For all that he believes Danzo would never do anything without reason, Minato has a hard time believing the same.

It's the generational gap. The young and the old do not have the same vision. Danzo had opposed Minato's candidacy and now there is an uneasiness between them that neither of them seems committed to mending.

So now he goes down to sort out the tangled threads of this problem.

What caused such a division? It is not as if he doesn't question it. Danzo had loved that young man like a son. But he can look past the initial shock. He can look past the shock, because he knows his oldest friend well.

He can see the problem from all angles. He knows there are reasons, for Danzo never does anything without reason.

His old friend and teammate sits facing the door, a pot of tea on the table before him.

That's the first indicator that this decision, and decision it was, didn't come easily. Shimura Danzo doesn't like to drink tea.

 _He'd always spoken of 'his boy' with such pride. What changed?_

They'd fought before Kaito was sent to the Iwa border. It had been the only big fight Hiruzen's ever heard of between them. But that had been years ago now. He hasn't heard of any other fights between them.

Recently, their relationship had been icy. He hadn't heard a word about Danzo's boy in ages. He almost misses the days when Danzo would say something or other about his 'boy.' They'd always been such little things — his cooking is passable now; he has learned a new kata; he has grown four inches in the past half year and needs new clothes. It was a nice reminder that under his gruff exterior, his best friend had a caring heart.

Icy relationships are not a reason for murder.

Hiruzen watches him from the other side of the table, considers the shaking hands Danzo hides by setting them against the desk.

Whoever said that Shimura Danzo has a heart of stone is a liar. A horrible horrible liar.

"Inuzuka Kaito died in the hospital early this morning." Hiruzen pours himself a cup of cold tea. "What have you done, Danzo?" _Give me reasons. Give me your reasons._

 _I have faith that you thought this through._

"What you can't do."

That tells him nothing except that Danzo is more hurt than he thought. Or at least, he's bitter again.

 _Old friend, what is there to be bitter about?_

 _We all have our own struggles with living._

"I gave up my boy for this village."

It was a choice then. Konoha or Kaito.

And in Shimura Danzo's mind, Konoha would win every time. He still doesn't know why.

Why was it a choice?

"So I thought correctly. You did kill him." _Minato suspected too. Give me a reason, Danzo. I don't want to think of you like you're a monster. I know you're just a man._

 _A man who's been my friend for more than 50 years._

Minato had been disgusted, had seemed like he was on the edge of making a decision.

Hiruzen had stopped him, had known there were reasons.

"The imposter who came back from Iwa killed him." Danzo reaches into the sleeve of his haori and pulls out two scrolls. "I merely ended the charade."

"He'd been replaced by a spy?" That is unexpected…

He had not thought that there was anything wrong with Inuzuka Kaito. The spy must have played his part perfectly then, to fool everyone except Danzo.

For goodness's sake, the man was married to an Inuzuka and best friends with a Nara. How easy would it really have been to replace him? Why would Iwa want to…

Inuzuka Kaito works in Research and Development. As Shimura Danzo's apprentice, he has clearance access to all the records of new projects. All of Konoha's research. All the new developments and advancements since wartime were at Inuzuka Kaito's fingertips.

Of course if Iwa could get their hands on that, they'd jump to do it in a heartbeat. Onoki is always militant, always looking for a chink in Konoha's armor, always ready to wage more war. He has seen enough of war to not want to court more of it, but Onoki doesn't share his views.

None of the great nations do.

How much had the spy leaked? How long was this going on?

How much of Konoha is in danger because of this? When and where can he expect an attack to come?

"The evidence says so. The mind walk said so. What was I supposed to do, let the mole continue to leak information because it wore a face that I knew?" He sounds so _resigned._

Inuzuka Kaito has been dead a long time then. Danzo's boy has been lost to everyone a long long time, and that hurts no one more Danzo.

"But you don't want anyone else to know about it." No, Danzo never liked that sort of thing, that show of weakness. Since he had bothered to deal with the problem himself, it's likely he doesn't want anyone else to know about it.

Hiruzen tucks the scrolls away. There's evidence here he needs to read and discuss with Minato. There's so much still to do.

"There's no reason to tell anyone. The information breach was contained." All he sees is Danzo's stooped shoulders, the sadness and grief in the defeated line. Who said Shimura Danzo was heartless?

They'd been young once, and Danzo had helped him win over Biwako.

Kagami had dragged Danzo out to a bar to "get him laid" so to speak, and they'd all realized that their friend wasn't particularly interested...in _anyone._

Which was fine really, just a bit odd. Maybe that's where the idea that Danzo was heartless came from.

He hadn't understood Hiruzen's interest in love and marriage, never fit that into his worldview, but when Hiruzen showed up on his doorstep drunk and sad, it had been Shimura Danzo who sat him down and said some wise words he still remembers now. _Don't wonder. Just do it. It'll never get done otherwise._

So he won't wonder about how much Shimura Danzo's done for Konoha. He'll just believe it.

"Besides Minato, no one needs to know."

* * *

Minato dies. Minato dies, and he spends a long time staring at the hat which mocks him from its place on the table.

Did he truly think he could escape this? Why had he been so foolish as to believe that?

Minato dies and Biwako dies and Kushina dies and all he's left with is a hat he doesn't want, an infant and three old friends too old for all their jobs.

It hurts like hell.

He's too old for this job. Biwako's been saying so for a long time, saying they ought to take the years they have left because there's so much of life that they'd never enjoyed, and wouldn't it be better to quit now when he's ahead?

 _You've lived longer than most shinobi, Hiruzen. It's time to take a rest._

 _I want to see you more often._

 _Your sons want to see you more often._

 _Come home to us?_

And he'd agreed.

He'd hung the Hokage Hat on a peg on the wall, passed it on to another, younger head.

He'd thought it finished, his days as a shinobi were finished, over, done with. He'll spend his days doing the bare minimum of mentorship for Namikaze Minato, and then dote on his eventual grandchildren.

Maybe he'll die in his sleep, peacefully, in a village he'd served for so many years.

He rests his aching head on his hands for just a brief moment, scrubbing his face tiredly. For just one moment, he'd like to act like he's tired instead of putting on a brave face.

"Are you fine?" He hadn't even heard Danzo come in.

"No." They've been friends for too long. Danzo hadn't asked to know the answer. They both know the situation isn't fine, but still, he asks because the act of giving and receiving truth has to happen sometime from someone.

It can't be masked and hidden forever.

Shinobi might have no emotions, but shinobi are only human and humans have emotions.

"Konoha has been weakened." The weight of the words hang in the air, too long, too sharp, too _real._ "Severely."

The last word makes his shoulders slump further. "I know."

"The village wants you to take back the hat."

He lets out a shuddering breath. "That's the only solution isn't it?"

Jiraiya's grief has climbed to dizzying heights.

He doesn't expect his student back soon.

When he raises his head and straightens his shoulders, Danzo's still watching him, dark eyes flat.

It is only grief that makes it so. There's been too much loss this year.

* * *

Nara Ensui has become something of a headache. For one, it is rather unprecedented to let a jounin handpick a team, and for another, the Head of Crypt has work to do. Far more work than someone who ought to have a genin team.

Still, if there's a way to persuade Nara Ensui to not pitch a fit when he doesn't get things his way, he hasn't found it yet.

"It seems that Ensui wants to take a genin team this year." He knocks his pipe against the ashtray in a vain attempt to clean it to the best of his ability before filling it back up with tobacco leaves.

"It seems?" Koharu raises one sharp eyebrow at him. "That boy's been practically screaming his intentions from the rooftops."

Yes, it's a very badly kept secret.

Nara Ensui has been running around asking after the state of the genin teams this year, with a special emphasis on the friends of his best friend's daughter.

If he didn't know it was only rumors, he'd blame Danzo for the current state of affairs. Someone said that Danzo had asked about Inuzuka Hana's friends in the chunin breakroom one day while Nara Ensui swung by, but Danzo doesn't visit the chunin breakroom period, so that idea was probably just someone's overactive imagination.

"The question is," Homura mutters "whether or not we humor him."

Of course they shouldn't humor him. It would set such a bad precedent among the other jounin. They'd all start thinking they could pick and choose their teams on a whim too.

But, but, does he want an overworked Head of Crypt or no Head of Crypt at all? _He wouldn't really do it._

 _He'd hand in his two weeks notice and then continue coming to work like clockwork after he's gotten over it._

"Give him the team he wants." Everyone turns to Danzo, who'd been silent on the matter thus far.

In the silence, you could probably hear a feather float through the air outside the window.

"Danzo, you've gone mad." Koharu sighs. "We can't let Nara Ensui anywhere near the field. He's impossible to motivate when he isn't in Crypt. That's the whole reason he ended up there in the first place."

Yes. Nara Ensui had decided on Crypt a long time ago, and almost every other position he'd been saddled with seemed to want him gone as soon as possible. His stint in Intel, in T&I and in RnD didn't last long.

"Not to mention, it sets a bad precedent for other jounin sensei to pick and choose their students." Hiruzen steeples his hands and stares across the table.

 _What are you thinking of, Danzo? Is this about Kaito again?_

 _Talk to your goddaughter if you must, but why does her genin team matter so much to you? Not even Kaito's genin team mattered to you, and you had full control of his education then._

Danzo meets his eyes firmly. _I am not backing down. Do what you will with that, Hiruzen._

"Nara Ensui has never been sane enough to be reasoned with." Danzo taps his fingers on the table, taking a sip of his sake before he continues. "And clearly he's bound and determined to get the genin team he wants. It might be easier to give him what he wants than to have him suddenly quit the forces altogether."

Oh, so he's heard about that threat too.

"You think he will?" Hiruzen chuckles. "I think he likes his job a little better than that." _I don't think Nara Ensui's willing to give up and let his wife bring in their only income. I think he's a little prouder than that._

 _Not to mention, Yamanaka Kihona is not the type to cater to the whims of a loafer._

"He'll threaten to." Danzo stares into his sake cup as if it holds more answers than it really does. "And you should know him well enough to know that he's capable of every threat he makes."

"Still, it's bad precedent to let jounin sensei move teams around." Homura sighs. "And yet, losing the Head of Crypt would be such a blow."

It would be. There's currently not a replacement for the Head of Crypt.

He'll have to look into that actually. No replacement for a position is a bad situation to be in.

He ignores the thought that there's no replacement for himself at the moment either. There's no one to be Hokage if he just falls asleep and doesn't wake up.

He won't think about that for a long time coming.

"I'll make a decision at the meeting tonight." Hiruzen pushes himself away from the table. "If Danzo's right then I might as well give him the team. It's not as if our current system is built on years and years of effort when it'll crumple like wet paper in the face of a motivated Nara."

Danzo snorts. "The young never respect the institutions of their elders." He also rises to go.

Somewhere, there's an irony in this. They hadn't respected Tobirama-sensei's teachings in some aspects either, but that was for the betterment of Konoha in a new era.

This just speaks of rebellion for rebellion's sake.

* * *

"If might be simpler just to disband Team Six." One of Nara Ensui's students is already a Chunin at age 11, and the rest are not far behind.

Maybe it's time to ask Nara Ensui to let go of his students, the same one's he calls his children.

 _Students are not your children. You'll only get yourself hurt with that in the end._

He'd hurt himself with that in the end. He'd loved his students like his children, and all it had gotten him in the end was two of them off to the ends of the earth, one of them in a lab, and two grown sons he still doesn't know.

There's a lot of hurt in the world for a sensei who loves his students too dearly and too fondly, like how Nara Ensui loves Team Six.

"You want to do what exactly?" His oldest friend does not sound pleased.

Hiruzen figured he wouldn't be. Danzo's never been particularly pleased about the state of the world, especially whenever it comes to Inuzuka Hana and her education.

"Disband Nara Ensui's team." They've been talking about this for a while now, but Danzo seems to want clarification. "We were talking about that, correct?"

"Why are we disbanding his team again?" Sometimes, his oldest friend gives him headaches.

If he truly cared about Inuzuka Hana's education, why watch and wait from the shadows? Why not just take an active interest in her education?

Instead of throwing the responsibilities onto Nara Ensui, why not just take her under his wing?

The man's exhausted enough.

"I need him to finish his work in Crypt before he kills himself out of exhaustion. We needed that information from Kiri decrypted yesterday." Hiruzen sighs. There's some sort of bloodbath in Kiri, a change of power that Konoha's Intel Division still hasn't pinned down entirely, largely because people keep dying while attempting to relay the news. "And we also need to find a Sensei for Uchiha Itachi before I do something about Minazuki Yuki."

The Uchiha want the man's blood. He'll have to never take another teaching post after the regrettable accident which left one genin dead and another one retired.

Only Uchiha Itachi remains an active duty shinobi.

"The simple solution is to merge the two." Koharu offers. "Find a new sensei for them."

"Or give them to Minazuki Yuki." Homura sighs.

"Over my dead body." Danzo snaps. "You will condemn my goddaughter to that man after you bury me." Rarely does Danzo hate someone. Rarely does Danzo tell people that Inuzuka Hana is his goddaughter. Most of the time, Koharu and Homura can forget.

They startle now upon remembering the fact.

Hiruzen has never been able to forget.

"No one's giving more students to Minazuki Yuki." He massages his temples. "Danzo, stop acting like Homura's holding a knife to Inuzuka Hana's throat when you haven't even spoken to the girl you're trying so hard to protect." He swings his gaze around to Homura. "And furthermore, Homura, stop coming up with lazy solutions to our problems. Minazuki Yuki is unfit and ought to be used as fodder for Iwa's bomb squad for running away from an attacker, damaging Konoha's reputation, and abandoning his students to their deaths."

That's what he'd prefer to do, but waste not want not.

Minazuki Yuki is still a perfectly good active duty shinobi. So they'll send him on a long patrol of an unpleasant border until the Uchiha forget about him.

There's a long pause in the air as everyone tries to figure out how to proceed. "Or you could find someone to be deputy head of Crypt," Koharu steeples her fingers together. "And merge the two teams and give them to Nara Ensui. He's been doing a good job training students."

Bless Koharu. Bless her really.

Despite not wanting to put more students in Nara Ensui's path, at least Danzo will be appeased, the Uchiha will be mostly appeased, and Nara Ensui might not throw a fit.

 _Why must I always settle for the path of least resistance to keep the peace between all these factions?_

He's not really fond of the squabbles and passive aggressive nature of these little spats between his friends, between the clans, between the nations — tensions threatening to boil over, moments of clarity amidst the fog.

So he settles for the current situation.

Nara Ensui gets to keep his students. Danzo gets his goddaughter far away from Minazuki Yuki. The Uchiha get a competent teacher for their clan heir.

Everyone's happy more or less.

The tensions under the surface though, that riptide pulls deep, like a forest fire smouldering under a pile of leaves. It might look placid on the surface, but just a few layers beneath that calm mirror a war still rages.

They'll never leave the war.

* * *

"Does it have to be Inuzuka Hana?" He asks, though he knows the answer to this question already. Another child when ROOT has taken so many promising children already. That is not to say that there's not plenty of children left to pick up defending the village in different ways.

Then again, there's plenty of children who'd joined ROOT much younger.

He squashes the thought that none of the other children had been a candidate to _lead_ ROOT in the inevitable future where Shimura Danzo passes from this world into the next.

His oldest friend isn't known for changing his mind.

If Danzo says that it's going to be Inuzuka Hana, it's going to be Inuzuka Hana.

His friend stares idly at the cup of sake in his hand, seemingly considering something. "Years ago, I made my boy a promise."

Phrases of this sentence stand out to him. _My boy. A promise._ Five years after the betrayal, Danzo still calls Inuzuka Kaito 'my boy.'

 _Would I offer Asuma the same if he ever turned against Konoha?_

 _Would I have the guts to kill him?_

The likely answer is no.

In that, Danzo has always been more firm and sure of himself than Hiruzen ever believed himself to be.

He's sentimental, he supposes, in a way that Danzo is not. Still, if there's anything that he knows, it's that promises might be carved in stone for Shimura Danzo.

If it's a promise, then it's a promise, and it'll endure to the end of time.

 _We're friends aren't we, Danzo?_

 _Of course we are. It's a promise._

Once, long ago, two boys had made their promises while the world prepared for war. Now, more than fifty years on, that promise still rings true.

A little older, a little faded, a little chipped and bruised, but the promise is the same. Inuzuka Hana will come to no harm in Danzo's shadow unlike the enemies of Konoha.

Perhaps that is where she is meant to thrive, rather than stagnate as she has done now, settled into routine as a desk ninja.

"You promised to be her godfather, not her shishou." There's a world of difference between those two words nonetheless.

For all his preoccupation with Inuzuka Hana's education, Hiruzen despairs of ever getting Danzo to even have a conversation with the girl that normal godfathers would have with their godchildren. They've never shared a meal or went for a walk or even talked together.

"I promised to keep her safe." Danzo raises an eyebrow at him. "What better way than making her feared?"

There's nothing he can say to that. He chuckles. "I wasn't saying that I'd disagree. I merely wondered."

"Don't wonder. No use in wondering. The only way something gets done is if you do it." Danzo rises, knees creaking, a firm grip on his cane. "It's late. I'll let you go home."

The last he sees of the so called darkness of shinobi is his back, as his friend creaks his way down the stairs and levels of the Tower.

Whatever lies in the future, one thing's for certain: Shimura Danzo's going to raise a holy terror. Inuzuka Hana's destiny is that of one fearsome woman.

But might that erase the child she already is?

 _Everyone has to leave childhood behind sometime._

He switches off the lights when Danzo leaves, sitting in the shadows, smoke from his pipe curling about his face. No point in going home now when it's already so late.

Another night at the office isn't out of his ordinary routine.

* * *

"She is strong but she is a child

She is a child

She is a child

Take the world off her shoulders

Children should not have to fight

To be young."

— M.H.W _, Yuki, Age Thirteen_

* * *

 **A.N.** So we get a Hiruzen POV. I dislike him more than I dislike Danzo, but that's another story. This is about 4.5k of interesting relationship dynamics and a tired old man who attempts good things and fails on all accounts.

As it is, end of semester is closing in, and I have no idea when I'll next update. I promise though, I'm not dead. It's just been rough recently. 3K of Ch 78 of Bloodless is written, I just hope to finish about 5 more scenes in it, so it's going to be a bit before I update, at least I think so. At this point, I've given up on predicting my updating ability.

Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, followed and favorited. Everyone makes my day brighter.

~Tavina


	18. The Redacted Journals

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.** Alternatively (The five people Kaito loved, and the one he forgot)

* * *

"No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories."

― Haruki Murakami

* * *

There once was a boy who wrote journals, though now he doesn't know where his former journals are. They are...somewhere. He left them somewhere, but he's overturned much of the house in search of them and still not found them so he is resigned to the idea that they have been lost to time.

"I am faced with the idea that perhaps I do not know myself as well as I thought." He writes. He journals every night, back into infinity as a habit and a rule. So tonight he writes as well. _December 12th. Konoha Era Year 48._

If he thinks too hard, there is a gap, a space, an _emptiness that gnaws him and does not let him go_.

The house is quiet behind him, softly peaceful. December brought snow with it, thick and fluffy for the first time in several years. Perhaps tomorrow he'll take Hana-chan out to see it. She's never seen the snowfall before, for it last snowed in Konoha the winter before she was born. She's a spring born child, his little blossom with her wide eyes and small hands.

He remembers snow in his childhood, Konoha turning white beneath it, remembers dark onion domes and a scorching noonday sun.

He remembers...remembers, remembers, but cannot place it.

He rubs his forehead with a hand. _What is it that I'm forgetting now?_

No his daily life has not _suffered._ He knows the face of each family member — there are only two, Hana-chan and Tsume-chan — and each friend — Kiho, Ensui, and Chobee — and each superior who greets him in the Tower and all his coworkers in RnD.

By all rights, he has forgotten nothing. Nothing at all.

Nothing's been forgotten, he's just...it's like seeing something out of the corner of his eye. Once he turns his head to confront the problem it's vanished to somewhere just slightly there on the edges of his vision.

The harder he tries to pick at the problem, the more he doesn't understand it. There is nothing he has forgotten about, certainly no person he's known who has died recently, so why does it feel like he's mourning a loss?

Something inside him seems to cry out as though a great weight has been placed on it and he cannot understand it. _I have been so fortunate to never lose anyone, so why why does it feel like I am covered in grief?_

 _The last mission went well besides Ensui ending up in a hospital bed. The war's over now — everyone is more or less safe now — so why do I feel like this?_

"Have I always been like this?" He asks the darkened house. _This covered in grief, this sick at heart though there is nothing for me to be sick over?_

From behind him, Tsume snorts. "If you mean your journal writing habits, then yes. You've always done that." She clambers out of bed where she'd been restitching one of her ripped shirts and comes to loop her arms around his neck. "And if you're asking about how frequently you space out and stare off into the distance, then yes, you've always done that too." She laughs softly. "Overworking at RnD has made your brain all fuzzy, Kai-baka."

 _Kai._ The word echoes.

His name is Inuzuka Kaito.

Everyone calls him Kai. Every single one of his friends calls him Kai like the last syllable of his name doesn't exist, so really, what's there so strange about this mention? It's not anything different than anything Tsume's ever said before.

He shakes his head and closes the journal, capping his pen carefully before deciding to turn in. "You're right."

"I'm always right." Tsume grins at him, sharp teeth flashing under the electric lights. "And I say that you ought to rest before you start to doubt your own existence."

"Alright, alright." He puts his hands up in surrender. "I yield. I yield. Have mercy." _Give mercy only to your loved ones Kai, and sometimes not even then._

The thought echoes, something buried and lost resurfacing.

But who had once said that to him with such paternal fondness?

He doesn't know and can't explain it. And with the lights out the thought slips from his mind.

* * *

There once was a boy. There once was an orphan boy from a different country, who moved here to Konoha as a child.

There once was an orphan who…

There is a man who was an orphan boy once upon a time sitting at his desk during his lunch break fiddling with bits of clay completely lost in thought.

He remembers Iwa. Remembers scorching sun, remembers meat sizzling on heated stone, remembers onion domes and someone sighing next to him.

But there are no faces in these memories.

And what of when he arrived in Konoha? _Landlords, late rent, thieving fingers, and then?_

What then?

 _The Academy, Kiho-chan's dirty blonde hair, Ensui laughing in the background, Tsume's sharp grins…_

What then?

 _The name Inuzuka, a rushed wedding, Kiho as godmother of his Hana-chan, a family of three…_

What then?

As he is now, a researcher, one of many in RnD.

 _But there's something missing isn't there? A hollow echo somewhere where something's missing isn't there?_

"Kai?" Ensui drawls from across the table. "The one day I'm joining you for lunch in your little underground lightless lab and you do this to me?" His best friend plucks the pen from his hand. "So diligent really. Why work so hard now? Enjoy yourself, you've got plenty of time."

"Those weren't my work notes."

His best friend picks up the sheet he's scribbled all over this lunch period. "What is it then?"

He frowns, suddenly not sure he wants Ensui to read everything. It's nothing but the nonsensical musings of a man with too much time on his hands and too many hollow echoes in his head. "A bedtime story I was writing for Sprout." That's a lie but it rolls smoothly off of his tongue.

He's not going to tell his cute three year old daughter the story of how her father fears he is losing his mind thank you very much. It has been months now, and there's still a wordless grief thick on his tongue, he can't quite explain.

Ensui hands him back the sheet of paper wordlessly. "You've only gotten stranger recently, Kai."

He raises an eyebrow. "Says the man who started wearing green face paint, and occasionally gets shitfaced in bars because according to you, Kiho-chan is jerking your chain."

"Look, she's _convinced_ that I am not serious."

Ensui's defensiveness just makes his eyebrow rise higher. "Perhaps not getting drunk and confessing your love in bars might, _might,_ do the trick? She might be more inclined to believe you then."

Ensui shoots him a baleful look. "Yes, well for some of us feelings are hard, alright?"

And he laughs, hollow echoes and memories with fuzzy edges forgotten. "And yet you can tell me that you love her, but one look at Kiho-chan and you're tongue tied."

It would serve Ensui right, a dish of karmic justice, just for that sharp tongue and slow drawl his best friend has.

Nara Ensui has a mind like a whip and an eye for social connections like no one else Kaito's ever known. Not even his best friend's second cousin, the Nara Clan Head really comes close to Ensui's feel for personal connections and deductions in that vein.

The irony of Nara Ensui losing his entire brain the moment he's confronted by feelings for their mutual friend is just too _good. You can look at everyone else and see their social secrets, tease them about their feelings, but just as soon as you caught feelings of your own you're just as bad as the rest of us._

 _Oh sweet sweet justice._

"I did not come to lunch to have you ignore me in favor of writing a bedtime story for your sprout and then to have you laugh at me." Ensui frowns at him, but his eyes are laughing.

"Rich coming from you." Kai counters. "I distinctly recall someone laughing himself silly when I told him I was _planning_ to elope."

"No one plans to elope, Kai." Ensui drawls, lazily tapping his fingers against the armrest of his chair. "They are by nature, unplanned. You're the only person I know who would _plan_ to elope."

"Well, I didn't want my elopement to go wrong." In some ways it had, in some ways it had, but the ceremony was small, and filled with only family and close friends, and it had been one of the happiest days of his life… _Congratulations, my boy._

And if he feels a hollow pang at not remembering parts of it, now's not the time to think of that. _Who? Who has ever called me 'my boy' with such fondness?_

He doesn't know who. There's no one in his life.

There once was an orphaned boy who grew up to become a man alone.

There now is a man who fears he is slowly slipping into madness.

Ensui rises to return to Crypt. They trade a few good natured jibes back and forth.

He puts his head back down in his small and cramped lab and goes back to work.

* * *

There once was a man who felt ghostly in his own life, as though there's something funny he can't place, like there's something important no one else bothered to tell him.

"Do you think this color suits me?" Kiho-chan waves a hand in front of his face.

"Pastel pink?" He considers it, considers Kiho's personality and the pale pink shade of the sundress she's chosen. "I would say that the green one you looked at earlier might be nicer."

It's not a bad color on her, because Kiho wears both pastels and jewel tones well. It's just, he hasn't seen her wearing any form of pink since the Academy and honestly the thought of his friend in a pink sundress seems...out of place somehow.

Kiho stares at the dress for a moment. "You might be right. I'm not particularly fond of the frills on the sleeves of this one either." She puts it back, frowning all the while.

"Kiho?" He asks, because soon they will miss their lunch reservation at Sadako's. "We were planning on going to lunch still, right?"

"Oh yes." She brightens. "You did always love the yakitori at Sadako's. We wouldn't want to miss that."

But how did he ever learn about Sadako's again?

He...doesn't remember the first time he went to Sadako's.

The thought is fuzzy around the edges, he's just always known of it that's all. "Hey, Kiho-chan, do you remember the first time we went to Sadako's?"

She blinks at him once. "Right after we graduated academy you invited us out remember? You said it was your favorite yakitori place."

Yes, that had to have been true, but —

 _If I was an orphan, how did I pay the bill after inviting them out? There's no way I could've…_

Perhaps Kiho is only being gentle about it. They'd all gone out together, and then they'd split the bill. That he would've been able to afford on an orphan's budget.

"Well, we still have some time. Did you want to try on the green dress again?"

* * *

There once was a man who forgot who he _was._

Sure the image was there, he still wore the same face, but all the echoes rang hollow. His actions are still his own but the meaning behind them is lost.

He didn't know who he was. He didn't know what made him this way.

 _Do I even know who I am anymore? Have I ever known who I am, or am I always just guessing, habits formed without understanding where they came from?_

When he dreams, the world is dark and he is falling down an endless abyss of shadows and formless shapes. _Lost. Lost. Lost._

 _You are lost. You can't be found._

And when he wakes it feels like there is something trying to crawl up his throat.

"Hey, Kai?" He looks up from where he'd fallen asleep against a tree next to an old training ground. He'd come here because it was habitual.

He doesn't remember having a genin team.

He only remembers the team he was friends with.

 _How did I make chunin? If I had no team, how did I make chunin?_

Chobee has said something, but he hasn't been able to recall it properly so much he's been dwelling on the state of emptiness inside him.

He offers his friend a thin smile. "I'm sorry, Chobee. I didn't catch that."

Chobee's face falls, concern creasing lines around his eyes and mouth like hairline cracks deepening on a shattered piece of pottery. "Kai, are you sure you're alright?"

He — _pauses._

No one has asked him that in — it feels like ages, but it cannot be that can it? It cannot be because while this village may not love the foreign look of him, his pale blond hair and blue gray eyes, cannot love his differing reactions, his strange little traditions, his small joys over seeing a building with a roof of a darker hue, his friends and family love him well — in a very long time.

"I-I'm not sure." The admission is soft. "I must've forgotten something. It's been bothering me." An understatement, but it's all he knows how to explain this as.

How could he describe these hollow impressions?

How does he explain this choking grief, this steady weight of _you are lost you are lost you are lost?_

"Have you been by to see Inoichi?" Chobee offers him a hand to pull him up. "Or if you're not comfortable with Inoichi, perhaps talk to Kiho?"

His friends are embroiled in their own issues with each other.

Ensui and Kiho-chan are determined to take the long way to their paradise it seems.

His smile turns more genuine. "I'll go to see Inoichi later this week."

* * *

There once was a boy, who is now a man, still grieving for no good reason despite having lost nothing.

"Tou-san, can you tell me a story tonight?" Hana-chan tugs at his sleeve before he can sit down to write, two bare feet peeking out from beneath the hems of her pant legs, her short hair messy from the tumbling she'd done with her puppies earlier that evening.

The floor is too cold for bare feet, even with it being nearly spring.

He scoops her up balancing his four year old daughter on one hip. "Of course. What sort of story would you like to hear?"

Tonight it's just the two of them.

Tsume is out on a mission that takes her further than she's been in a while.

"Mmmm." Hana-chan sighs softly, hands sticky with something he's uncertain about, so they make a detour towards the kitchen sink before bed. "I want to hear about the faces on the cliff."

"The stories of all the Hokage are far too much for one night, Sprout!" He laughing tucks her into bed, arranging the soft child sized blanket that she's had since birth around her.

She'll outgrow it soon.

 _Who was this a present from again?_ He feels a tinge haunted thinking about it. It was someone important to him, wasn't it?

Ensui? Kiho? Chobee? Who'd sent his Hana-chan this blanket? Why can't he recall where they got it from?

"So you'll have to just pick one, and I'll see what I can tell you about them." As a child in the academy, he'd soaked in all the knowledge he could get about the Hokage.

Every child goes through a time where they want to be Hokage, to be important and adored, but as he is right now, all he wants is to be adored by his daughter, to be loved by friends and family, to reconcile his wife and his sister-in-law.

Inuzuka Kosshi-san still does not like him much.

He is resigned to that fact. Despite planning and successfully eloping, actually perhaps because of that, the rest of his extended family turned cool towards him.

And as a result, Tsume had taken to spurning her sister's invitations and inquiries as well.

Perhaps when she returns home once more, they'd have to discuss it, to go over the wrongs on both sides — for he is not arrogant enough to believe that he has done no wrong — and to begin to mend bridges.

"Mmm." Hana-chan sleepily thinks it over. "Tou-san, can you tell me about the Nidaime today then?"

She's halfway to sweet dreams already.

Unconsciously, his lips turn up in a fond smile as he smooths down her hair and organizes his thoughts. "Well, as you already know, Nidaime-sama was the second Hokage, and younger brother of the Shodaime. In his youth, he was known for being brilliant. He created the Academy, the shinobi ranking system, and the current divisions of labor at the Tower. But perhaps what he was best known for were the jutsu he created and the sword he wielded. Today I will tell you about how the Nidaime became the wielder of the Raijin no Ken…"

* * *

Ever since age eight, when he arrived at the Shimura Residence, Iwa no Kaito had kept journals.

Inuzuka Kaito was no different.

This is what his journal doesn't say.

They are in his childhood home, sitting on opposite sides of the kitchen table, going over plans for the next few months as both he and his father prepare to leave.

Soon, they will both be called away.

Konoha is in the middle of a war — the third great war they've started to call it, the third war in less than fifty years, no children grow up free of war — and in a week's time he will be sent to the Kusa-Iwa border to hold the line.

As a Konoha Shinobi, even though he has not had the chance to take the jounin exams ever since the war began, it is his _duty_ to go.

Still, before he goes, he ought to at least ask his father what is going on in the newly formed ROOT.

The reports he'd heard, the nasty whispers of children leaving the orphanage and never returning, of child soldiers with hands barely big enough to grip a kunai smacks too much of slander to him for it to sit comfortable on his shoulders.

The look Uchiha Fugaku had cast him the last time the Military Police Captain passed him in the street had raised all the hairs on the back of his neck. He'd never gotten along entirely with Uchiha Fugaku since even before he'd eloped with Tsume, but it had been a dull sort of 'I do not approve' rather than the full on critical judgement in the older man's eyes this Tuesday just past.

And he just _knows_ this new judgement is because of the rumors.

His father is harsh yes, never entirely approving, never entirely fond and more often than not critical, but he is not a child torturer.

He is not a child kidnapper either.

 _You took me in and raised me when I had nowhere to go. I'd trust you with my life, the lives of my entire family and all of my friends._

 _So why, why do they say you have not done the same for your new branch of ANBU?_

 _I know that your heart is kind when you want to be, even if your hands are stained and you have done terrible things in the name of loyalty._

The first lesson his father had taught him is that traitors ought to hang. Shimura Danzo has never betrayed Konoha and never will.

Iwa no Kaito would never.

"Shishou, there was something I wanted to ask you before I have to report for border duty." The man sitting across from him with a sake cup is Shishou no longer, given that his apprenticeship is officially over. Has been over for a good three years now, but it's a force of habit more than anything else.

One day, one day, his father had said he'd retire and leave his tasks in the Tower to him.

Kaito's not entirely sure he looks forward to the day, so many bloody choices await him when it arrives, but his father is older now, older than most fathers are when their son turns twenty four given that he'd been close to forty when he'd taken in a frightened child refugee from Iwa.

 _You deserve a good last decade of your life at least, Father._ Yes, Shimura Danzo deserves a decade where he does not have to sit at a table and make hard diplomatic choices, where he can visit Hana-chan whenever he would like, drink sake, offer council when it's needed, read and play Go when it's not...his father deserves a _retirement._

Free of stress and worry, free of anger at incompetency, free to be optimistic about the future.

"What was that, my boy?"

The house has lost its well preserved newness over the years he stopped living in it. Everything seems a little dustier now, even if it looks like someone had _attempted_ to clean a little bit at least before his arrival.

At least the floor's been swept if not mopped.

"I heard some unpleasant rumors recently." _About you,_ he wants to say, but he does not because well, his father knows what he means.

"Unpleasant how?" Shishou rumbles.

"They say that your new branch of ANBU doesn't have a child over age ten." This is the mildest of them, the mildest of all the things he's heard — of torture and interrogation, of training so difficult it could make a jounin cringe, of secrecy seals and missions so seeped in blood it ought to be left to the most experienced of the dark ops.

"You were my apprentice by age ten." So that was true then, that rumor was true. "And an academy student long before that."

"Do they have to be so young?" He asks. He'd thought himself wordly at age ten, had thought he's endured enough pain to become an adult, but now from the other side, now age twenty four he can only see children too small to be soldiers.

His daughter is only three years old.

"If they don't start young they won't learn properly." The statement seems too cold to be right, too chilled and hard even coming from his father's mouth.

"I learned." He'd started out late.

"You learned sensitivity." His father raises black eyes to pin him with a heavy look, no disapproval, merely resignment. "But there is no need for sensitivity in those who follow orders, only those who give them."

Does he stop this line of questioning now? Does he let it go and let them celebrate this night in peace? He turns twenty four tonight, and it is the only reason they are now in his childhood home, sharing sake and laughing over old stories.

Does he choose the easier path while turning his back on what's right?

His daughter is three years old, a child with big eyes and small hands who loves him utterly and who he adores.

He does not let the matter lie.

And that is when things fall apart.

* * *

"I wonder which will get you killed faster—

Your loyalty or your stubbornness?"

— Unknown

* * *

 **A.N.** There's a reason this chapter's called "The Redacted Journals." After 16 chapters, we finally revisit the most mysterious dead man in Bloodless. Here, I went for a focus on his various issues, unlike in "The Happiest Days of His Life" where I went for more of a focus on perchance the things that brought him joy.

Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, followed, and favorited recently. You guys keep me excited to keep writing.

~Tavina.


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